


drive all night ‘til I let down my guard (you taste so good and you look like art)

by blake0tyler



Category: The Wilds (TV 2020)
Genre: All The Tropes, Alternate Universe - Actors, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Friends With Benefits, I couldn't help myself, is it truly fwb if they’re barely friends?, let me just throw in some fake dating too, should I say sexual education for the sake of artistic integrity instead?, the author is in love with Mia Healey and it shows, the author knows nothing about Hollywood and many liberties are taken
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 07:14:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29006646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blake0tyler/pseuds/blake0tyler
Summary: From middle of nowhere Minnesota to full superstar status in a year and a half—that’s the Toni Shalifoe story. A more authentic Cara Delevingne, she’s called. The new Kristen Stewart but without the messy Twilight past.And now Gretchen Klein wants to jump on the bandwagon, and Shelby’s got to do a chemistry read in about twelve hours.:::[ an actor/friends with benefits au with a hint of fake dating ]
Relationships: Shelby Goodkind/Toni Shalifoe
Comments: 135
Kudos: 761





	1. I.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N:
> 
> Hi, there. You have arrived at my breezy and fun little project that I work on whenever I need a break from my heavy character study stuff lol. This will probably get out of control. Title from "Frustrated" by Lauren Sanderson.

She’s on her morning run around Griffith Park when she gets the call. It’s still early but the L.A. sun, even at this hour, is hot and burning on her bare arms. She’s flushed and sweaty and, on top of that, instantly annoyed that Thom decides to FaceTime. It’s barely past eight in the morning.

“Oh,” he says when she slides her thumb over the screen after three beats. “Oh—are you—”

“On a run,” Shelby pants out. “This better be good, Thom.”

His face tells her the answer before she even hears the words.

“They got her.” The grin that breaks on his face is almost as blinding as the sunlight. “She’s _in_ , Shelbs. She’ll do it.” He scrunches his nose a bit. “I mean, the two of you still have to do that chemistry read tonight, but I assume that won’t be—”

“Wait,” Shelby says, cutting him off. “Chemistry read? You mean, me and... and...” Her heart starts racing, her Texas accent curling a bit more thickly around the words now that she’s panicked. “Why is there a chemistry read? It’s not even—”

“Gretchen just needs to see it once,” Thom says, his reassuring manager voice clicking into place. “You’re both perfect for the individual parts, she knows that. But with this whole experimental improvisation spiel, she just wants to see how much room there is to work with in terms of tension. It’s not a crazy request.” He runs a hand through his hair. “Same thing for Fatin Jadmani, actually. She just needs the three of you to be in a room together and see what it feels and looks like.”

Shelby’s trying to wrap her head around all the different implications as fast as she can, knows that this is business. But it’s early and she’s still very much caught on the fact that Thom said that they actually managed to get—

“She’s... she’s flying out, then?” Her voice sounds a bit thin. “ _Tonight_?”

“Look, I know it’s short notice, but there’s no other way.”

Instantly, Thom’s voice takes on that slightly condescending quality that always makes Shelby feel like she doesn’t have any space to push back. Where he is about to remind her just how great of an opportunity this is; that she could be pushing her artistic limits with this project, that it’s going to be a hit now that they’ve managed to not only sign Fatin Jadmani and Shelby herself, but also—

“I just received the sides in my inbox so if you can cut your run short and drive by asap?”

“Y-yeah.” She takes a breath, steadying herself. “Right, Thom, of course. I’ll come over now.”

“Great.” Thom makes a relieved sort of sound and then says, “This is a really big opportunity, Shelby. I mean, with _For Better or Worse_ cancelled, it’s important that we make this work, okay?” 

She nods, and then, to hear herself say it more than anything, she adds, “No, I know. I’m excited. I’ll—I’ll come over right now.”

Thom smiles, says, “Proud of you, kid!” and then hangs up before she can even flash a smile back.

She stretches slowly, phone still in her hand as she holds her arms up above her head and tries to catch her breath. Tries not to get too angry at the fact that Thom just called her _kid_ despite the fact that she’s twenty-one _._ Tries to truly feel excited about the reading tonight instead of stressed out.

She breathes the oxygen deeper into her lungs, then presses her hands to her hips and forces herself to get it together.

She needs to find a way to make it work. It’s what she does. It’s what she’s been doing her whole life already.

Auditions, chemistry reads, learning lines last minute. She will get it together.

She will buy a smoothie and the closest stand, drink it slowly while the sweat dries on her skin and she gets this weird panic that is running through her veins out of her system. She will drive to Thom’s place, get the sides, take a shower, study every single detail of the scenes—and then do the best chemistry read of her entire life. 

“Oh my god,” she hears, just as she starts walking again, her muscles aching from the sudden break from running. “Is that—”

Two girls, early teens. They’ve already got their phones out, but all she does is wave at them, flashing them a quick smile and brushing past, as she pulls her sunglasses from her adidas fanny pack.

She doesn’t want to take any selfies right now. 

There’s only one person in line in front of her and Shelby orders a raspberry smoothie. She tells the guy her name’s Rebecca for the order, but he barely even blinks up at her, and she feels foolish for it right as she says it.

_Fuck._

The news is really messing with her.

It shouldn’t be. The idea to get Toni Shalifoe involved with Gretchen Klein’s new drama series has been communicated to her right from the beginning, before Fatin Jadmani was even officially cast.

But Toni Shalifoe is—

Dropping down in the grass, Shelby takes out her phone and navigates to Toni’s instagram feed, which she herself isn’t following but 16.2 million others are.

From middle of nowhere Minnesota to full superstar status in a year and a half—that’s the Toni Shalifoe story. Never acted a day in her life before the age of 18 and then got scouted during auditions at some performance arts school she wasn’t even applying to. Something like that, at least. Shelby doesn’t know the details.

All she knows is that about a year ago, up-and-coming director Linh Bach needed a rough-looking queer girl for a subversive drama film that had zero buzz surrounding it—and then the whole thing blew up. Top of the list at all the festivals. Critics losing their minds over it. Toni Shalifoe gaining a following of millions overnight, as well as endless offers from the biggest names in film.

A more authentic Cara Delevingne, she’s called. The new Kristen Stewart but without the messy _Twilight_ past.

And now Gretchen Klein wants to jump on the bandwagon, and Shelby’s got to do a chemistry read in about twelve hours. 

She lets her gaze run over the instagram feed. The majority of pictures are snapshots from living in New York, which is clearly where Toni spends most of her time between shoots. Not Minnesota but New York City.

The selection of photos is predictable in a way that makes Shelby think she’s got someone managing her profile: the whole posing on a fire escape in edgy fashion thing; Toni playing basketball on some court on the middle of the city; on a rooftop, against the backdrop of the city, with her arm around a pretty girl.

Shelby lingers on that one, takes in the way their hands are intertwined, the way Toni’s casually taking a drag of a cigarette. The girl’s in a lot of pictures and very clearly Toni’s girlfriend by the looks of it; they’re wrapped around each other in every single photograph together. 

Her thumb brushes against the screen and the tag appears: _itsreganforyou._

She clicks away from the photo before the strange feeling in her stomach can solidify, focusing instead on the collective of Toni Shalifoe’s instagram feed.

Call it prep time, she decides, taking another sip of her smoothie. Getting a grip on the situation so that she can kill it at the read tonight.

Thom would be so proud.

(He _would be_ , Shelby realizes as an afterthought with a sting of annoyance; probably wants her to take note, to watch and learn from Toni’s socials)

The thing is, she wouldn’t be able to, though. Because right under the shine, there are details in Toni’s feed that Shelby could never fabricate.

There’s a blurry black and white picture from a birthday party, with Toni throwing her arms around a girl as she steps into a room packed with people, clearly a surprise party. It’s captioned _the one and only marty b,_ which sounds a bit tacky but feels honest in a way Shelby can’t put her finger on.

There’s a series of pictures taken from what appears to be the top of a truck; wide skies and blurry night shots that any social media adviser would have suggested she take down.

There are also sporadic pictures of stacks of books, shoved between the fashion shoots, and Shelby would think it’s for show but Toni’s actually written messy stream of consciousness notes under most of them.

She lingers on a shot of Louise Erdrich’s _Love Medicine_ , flicking her eyes back and forth between the dark blue cover and the sliver of tan skin of Toni’s leg against which the book is resting. 

Her face feels a bit hot and she slides out of the app.

The truth is that there’s something disarming about Toni’s instagram page, something that’s one part the fact that Shelby’s way too industry to pull any of this off—the scruffiness, the uncoordinated tumblr look of it, the real people from her nowhere past—and one part the fact that Toni doesn’t try to be pretty.

Sure, she’s in make-up for the shoots, in fashion for the red carpets. But everything else is bare skin and oversized t-shirts, messy curls and hard eyes. Not a single smile is forced or fake, and _that_ ’s the magnetism of it.

The critics are right: she _is_ real.

As real as they get, anyway, and Shelby would know.

:::

The sides that Thom hands her for the chemistry read are from the pilot episode of Gretchen Klein’s new project, still untitled. It’s such an obscure job that no one even knows what they’re working on exactly. The only way it’s been pitched to her is: feminist, experimental, _real._

Words that, either way, would make her father choke on his holy water if he knew.

Which is why he doesn’t.

Not yet, anyway.

Shelby has sworn Thom to secrecy, something that had been difficult to accomplish considering the fact that her manager can’t keep his mouth shut to anybody about anything and Dave Goodkind watches his daughter’s every move like a hawk.

He’d thought Thom too young initially, to manage Shelby, scoffed at the idea of someone in his early thirties being this well-connected in Hollywood—had, in fact, taken it as a personal offense.

But Thom has certainly proven himself capable. Not only does he know everyone, he is _liked_ by everyone, which is a great advantage. Besides, in just two short years, he has single-handedly managed to reinvent Shelby’s image into something other than the sunshine girl from the Disney Channel musical theater show that has been the defining building block of her acting career. 

He’s created new paths for her to take, has made her grow up a little; new projects, more modelling, a little more independence, in particular from her parents.

And now he has given her this: Gretchen Klein’s secret project that no one, not even Dave Goodkind, knows anything about. 

Shelby thumbs through the sides.

She’s cast for a girl called Vita Jameson. She’s described as preppy and light, as someone who doesn’t like it when people don’t like her, but apparently will have a pretty rough character arc to work through. The role of Mercy Tahir is reserved for Fatin Jadmani, though Shelby doesn’t have any clue how tiktok queen Fatin will make gritty, sarcastic, one-track-minded Mercy work, not even under Gretchen’s directing.

Both girls will be the center of a feminist survival narrative. The only details Shelby knows about the storyline are that they don’t know each other at the beginning, but manage to break out of some scientific military base, where they were held against their will. Subsequently, they have to track through the middle of nowhere, with the show jumping back and forth between their moment of escape and their reasons for ending up in the facility in the first place. 

When they first spoke about it, Thom called it a “sort of reverse _Into the Wild_ mixed with _Orphan Black_ ” which hadn’t sounded too good to Shelby, though the way her body responded at the mention of Tatiana Maslany made her feel fifteen years old all over again. 

They’d gone back and forth on it, talked about the risks involved, about doing a show she barely knew anything about—and with a YouTube star, of all people.

She’d felt hesitant and on edge, her memories of interacting with Gretchen Klein the few times they’d met, uncomfortable at best.

But then Thom had dropped her name.

He’d said, “Shelbs, they’re getting Toni Shalifoe involved.”

And that—

Well—

Shelby stares at the script.

Not two girls, but three girls. Used to being the center of attention Vita Jameson. Stubborn and observant Mercy Tahir. And somewhere in the middle... the role of sharp-witted, unreadable, all-her-dreams-in-shards Connor Bell.

Toni Shalifoe’s for the taking. 

That is, if the chemistry read goes well.  
  


* * *

  
They are about forty minutes from L.A., when Toni nods off with her phone unlocked in her hand, and accidentally causes Martha to realize. 

“ _Shelby Goodkind_?”

The peace and quiet of ignorance was good while it lasted, Toni thinks, the second Martha’s hand slams down on her arm. She’s wide-eyed and shocked, pushing across the little divider between their two first class seats and all the way up into Toni’s space. “Your audition is with _Shelby Goodkind_ —”

“Nice, Marty, now the whole fucking plane knows.”

It’s unlikely actually, considering the fact that they’re pretty much separated from everyone else. Thanks to Gretchen Klein and her team.

“Oh my god,” Martha is saying. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me. We used to watch _Sing Your Heart Out!_ every single day when we were in freshman year!”

Toni groans. “That’s ‘cause it was the only thing that was on at 4 and neither of us had any other friends.”

“ _You_ —” Martha squeezes Toni’s bicep so hard that she’s pretty sure it’s cutting off her blood circulation. “—have got an audition with the girl who played Kelsi Summers, oh my god!”

“Marty...”

She tries to pull her phone back from Martha’s hand and curses at herself for leaving it unlocked on Shelby’s fucking instagram page. Curses herself for even _looking_ at the damn feed in the first place.

All those perfectly styled headshots, the fucking gym pictures in which she doesn’t even seem to break a sweat...

Fuck, what’s wrong with her?

Martha is still holding the phone out of reach. “I can’t believe you’re going to be on a show with Shelby Goodkind!”

“It’s just a read. I’m not even—”

“Remember when you had all those cast posters up on your side of the closet when we were sharing my room?”

“Shut up.” Toni scrambles for her phone, goes red. “It was one poster and your mom put it up because _you_ were always watching that show, and besides, she wasn’t even on it.” It’s a lie. “I swear to god, Marty, give me my phone back or I’m calling the flight attendant.”

Martha is unfazed. “Can I go with you to the audition tonight? Can I meet her? Please?”

“Jesus, Marty, _no_.”

There’s enough bite behind it that Martha finally backs off, face falling. Toni instantly feels a wave of guilt crash over her.

“Fuck, I’m sorry...” She inhales sharply, turns to face her friend. “Sorry, that was stupid. I’m just stressed about this project because it’s like... a big thing. Like, super industry. Everyone knows what they’re doing and stuff, and I’m...” She trails off, knowing Martha will question her if she lets too much slip. Instead, she scowls at the screen of her own phone, still in Martha’s hand. “She’s fake, okay, Marty? Shelby Goodkind is just a basic Hollywood white girl from L.A.”

Martha is quiet for a second, and then says, “She’s from Texas.”

Toni forces herself not to roll her eyes. She sinks deeper into the leather of the seat and Martha softens at the sight.

“Toni...” she says, in that way she always does. “I know you’re nervous—”

“I’m not _nervous_.”

“—and I know that everyone expects a lot from you.”

Toni scoffs, but it’s spot on. People _do_ expect a lot from her.

Like, yes, the critics might be obsessed and the articles might be raving about her, but that’s not how it works. In fact, if there’s one thing she’s figured out in the last year and a half, it’s that, most of the time it only makes things worse. The scrutiny, the judgement. The realization that she only gets to have this — the money, the first class tickets for her friends, the opportunities, hell; even the fucking fanbase — if she’s able to deliver.

Her talent. Her time. That Toni Shalifoe edge that people seem to want from her on the screen. That raw little bite that she doesn’t know how to _perform._

Which is why she hates auditions.

“Look.” Martha leans across the divider again, hand on her arm, and Toni feels jittery from the airplane coffee and the tension in her chest, and if anyone else were to touch her right now, she would snap at them. But this is Martha. “I’m sure it will be fun. I watch a lot of interviews with her, actually, and she’s always super nice.”

Toni scoffs. 

“Seriously,” Martha goes on. “She has a lot of really insightful answers. And didn’t you think that one show she was in last summer was pretty good?”

“I didn’t watch it.”

“Yes, you did. The one where she played the singer? _For Better Days,_ or something _?_ ”

“ _For Better or Worse._ It got cancelled.” 

Martha smirks. “See, I knew you watched it. You never log out of my Netflix.”

“Just ‘cause I watched it, doesn’t mean it was good.” 

“Do you want me to say that to Shelby Goodkind tonight?”

“You’re _not_ coming to my audition—”

:::

Martha is coming to Toni’s audition. If only because she needs someone to complain to about all these fucking white people.

Gretchen Klein’s house is absolutely _massive_.

It’s the exact kind of place that people picture when they think about Hollywood; an impractical one-level modern structure with enormous glass window panes and a yard that’s practically built into the surface of a hill.

“Don’t,” Toni says. “Don’t even say it, Marty.”

She feels a little underdressed in her tight black jeans and white tee, her mom’s old jacket hanging loosely around her shoulders, despite the fact that she isn’t here to impress anyone. Well, not on a personal level, anyway.

In all honestly, despite what looks to outsiders like an effortless climb to the top, Toni’s still getting used to all of this; the image, the fame, the fact that when she arrives at rich people’s houses like this, the doors just swing right open now.

From her own team, they sent her agent Dean Young along. Initially, Toni had half the mind to tell management that she doesn’t need a supervisor, but now she’s happy that Dean is taking the lead.

“—such a pleasure, Ms. Klein.”

“The pleasure is all mine.”

Toni turns just in time, and then strong arms wrap around her shoulders and Gretchen Klein is pulling her in for a hug.

If she goes a bit tense, Gretchen doesn’t mention it.

“Toni,” she says, like this is not the first time they meet. “I’m so glad you could make it.”

“Thanks for having me,” she says, even managing a smile. More because she’s supposed to than because she means it, but still.

She’s still taking it all in; the large sliding doors, the smooth surface of the pool, the soft glow from the house, where Shelby Goodkind may or may not already—

“Fatin just got here,” Gretchen is saying, and then, “Don’t worry, I swear this whole endeavor is just a little icebreaker. We’ve seen your self-tapes. We know what we’re working with here.”

Gretchen winks and Toni has to bite back on her bottom lip to keep from saying, _liar._

She knows how these things go. Everything is always casual and lowkey and ‘just drinks’ or ‘coffee’ or ‘a little icebreaker’, but Toni has started to realize how it works. This is where careers are made or broken; in the moments when it least seems to matter.

Still, she smiles, “Can’t wait.”

Gretchen pulls her along into the house, chatting about the flight and the hotel, and asking Toni if she wants to drink anything.

Part of her had wondered if it’s weird to have an audition at the director’s house, but Dean had told her not to question it. Those weren’t his exact words. He’d said a lot about _money_ and _opportunity_ and _don’t fucking ruin this, Toni_ , but the message had been the same: you will do as she says if you know what’s good for you.

Almost like she’s read her mind, Gretchen says, “As I said on the phone, don’t even think of this as an audition. Think of it as the beginning or our great cinematic experiment. The girls will be so happy to meet you. Oh, and—” She finally seems to register Martha. “—it’s so good you brought a friend! Or should I say, girlfriend?”

Toni nearly chokes on her drink while Martha lets out a snorting, little giggle.

“Friend,” Toni says. “Well, more like sister, actually.”

As Dean and Gretchen get caught up in industry chit-chat, Toni chuckles when Martha leans over to her and whispers, “She thought I was your girlfriend.”

“I’m out of your league, Marty” she jokes.

Martha just retorts, “Your actual girlfriend is out of _your_ league.” 

Toni forces a smile, trying not to think of the fact that she hasn’t actually told Martha about the fight yet. Hasn’t told Martha that Regan and her have been steadily approaching another _off-_ again phase to add to the mess of their relationship history.

She takes out her phone and sure enough, there’s a whole bunch of messages that she hasn’t replied to, varying form _babe, I’m sorry about this morning_ to _of course you can’t even fucking text me that you landed safely._

Gretchen Klein pulls her out of her thoughts. “Let’s go out onto the patio. Shelby should be here any minute.”

Toni pushes her phone back into her pocket and ignores the way her stomach flips uncomfortably at the prospect.

Thankfully, meeting Fatin Jadmani proves to be enough of a distraction.

In terms of fame, Toni knows that Fatin operates on a whole other level than her—and even on a whole other level than Shelby Goodkind. Whereas Shelby has been in front of the camera since she could walk, and Toni never even considered acting until that thing happened with Martha’s audition two years ago, Fatin Jadmani is famous in a different world: YouTube.

With 21 million subscribers, she’s one of the biggest faces in the world of beauty influencers—and, fine, walking up to her now, Toni will admit that she can see why.

Fatin eyes her up and down, then says, “So, you’re the new Ruby Rose or whatever?”

Toni chuckles. “Are you the new James Charles?”

Fatin laughs. “Oh, baby, he wishes.” 

They look at each other for a moment, and Toni can feel the corners of her mouth pull up in a small smile. Fatin turns to Martha, then, who, of course _,_ knows all the ins and outs of Fatin’s channel, and ends up doing most of Toni’s work in terms of socializing.

It’s a risky choice, Toni thinks, to go with Fatin Jadmani for a project like this. But then, again, despite the recent surge in attention on her, she knows most people in this industry still consider her somewhat of a risk, too. Despite the shine of some of the big names she’s worked with, most of Toni’s short career — if you can even call it that — has been under-the-radar indies.

She’s never done a drama series either.

Unlike—

There’s a moment, right before Gretchen jumps up and Toni turns, that her body already seems to feel it. Something tightening in her chest, her fingertips suddenly a little clammy. Almost like the air shifts and everything stills, just for a second, which, she _knows,_ sounds too much like a goddamn Hollywood cliché, and yet, it’s the only way it registers.

For a moment, right before she even catches sight of the wavy blonde hair, the long legs, those _eyes,_ Toni feels eleven years old.

Eleven years old with a stolen issue of _CosmoGirl_ that belongs to her foster sister, the cast picture of _Sing Your Heart Out!_ ripped from the pages. Eleven years old with the blinding smile of twelve year old Kelsi Summers taped to the inside of her locker for the whole two months Toni stayed at that school. 

Back when the biggest dream she had was to age out of the system one day.

For a moment, she’s eleven years old, and then she’s back in the present, at a million dollar mansion in Hollywood to do a fucking chemistry read—and from across the patio, Shelby Goodkind shoots her a smile.


	2. II.

“Female intimacy,” Gretchen Klein is saying, “in my humble opinion, is the most necessary component in film today.”

Toni toys with the stem of her champagne glass, desperately trying to avoid Martha’s eyes at all costs. She knows that if she makes eye contact with her best friend for even one second during this... toast, she’s going to fuck up the project before she’s even signed the contract.

“The world needs more stories that place women at the center,” Gretchen continues. “Complex, layered characters, who subvert the patriarchy of cinema in myriad ways.” 

For fuck’s sake.

What kind of show is this going to be?

From the corner of her eyes, Toni tries to gauge everyone else’s reaction. They’re still on the patio in the backyard, seated around a fire pit. Fatin is to her direct right, next to a white guy with short dark hair who looks like he does toothpaste commercials, and then—

Shelby Goodkind meets her eyes and smiles, _again._

Toni glances away, feeling a pinch of annoyance that she can’t quite explain. Shelby’s persona has been rubbing her the wrong way since she introduced herself. The friendly looks, the cheery attitude. It’s all so fucking fake. 

Shelby, in real life, looks every bit like she does on her instagram feed. She’s not dressed very fancy, which had been somewhat of a relief to Toni. But still; the pale pink t-shirt, tucked into the expensive-looking black and white skirt. Her long, blonde hair falling down her shoulders in beautifully styled waves. Black Chelsea boots, perfectly French-tip manicured nails.

She looks like she knows she can pull it off, and Toni can’t stand it.

“I feel _beyond_ lucky,” Gretchen goes on. “To have the three of you in one place together. I know it’s early, but I have a feeling we’re going to create something very special together. As I’ve said before, tonight is merely a formality. A production box to check, so to say. I want you all to feel as comfortable as you can.” She glances around, making a point of looking at each and every one of them. “The only way we create a world where women can thrive is when we don’t force them to perform themselves.”

Interesting take, coming from a film director. 

Toni takes a shaky inhale. She can’t believe they met only fifteen minutes ago and Gretchen Klein is already talking like whatever they’re going to make here is inevitably going to change the world of film forever. 

As though she’s heard the thought, Gretchen raises her glass with a triumphant expression on her face and they all _cheers_ together, Toni’s mind spinning incessantly on how weird all of this is. 

Shelby had been nice, when she arrived.

 _Too_ nice.

She’d walked up to Toni with the confidence of someone who knows the world will bend to her will wherever she goes. Extended an eager hand and had said _gosh, I’ve been so excited to meet you_ in that heavy Texas drawl that somehow sounded way more pronounced in real life than on any show she’s ever been on.

Martha, starstruck and suddenly the bane of Toni’s existence, had blurted out _we’re big fans of your work,_ which Toni will have to remember to kill her for later.

But Shelby had smiled, had glanced at Toni for another second, and then proceeded to tell Martha that her eyes were _drop dead gorgeous_ —which, what the actual fuck.

Toni’s still frowning, even thinking about it.

Never mind the fact that they’re all here, toasting to their cooperation like it’s a done deal. Never mind they haven’t even done the read yet.

“...and of course, Toni’s stellar performance in _Hallucinogenic._ ”

She snaps out of her thoughts. Gretchen is looking at her with a proud expression on her face, like she’s somehow personally responsible for that movie, which—

“That was all Linh Bach, honestly,” Toni says. “I just got lucky.”

“Now, Toni,” Gretchen says. “Don’t sell yourself short. It’s truly a revolutionary piece of film. To center queer sexuality like that.”

There’s something to the way Gretchen says it, something that Toni knows she should just let slide. A little edge to the words that is probably entirely unintentional, probably just the effect of a twenty-year generational gap.

Still, it manages to get under Toni’s skin just a little bit. “Revolutionary?”

She can’t help it.

“Well, yes,” Gretchen says, not picking up on the implication of Toni’s tone. “I just thought it was absolutely phenomenal. So new and refreshing.”

“There’s nothing new about queer sexuality,” Toni says. 

Instantly, the conversation quiets. Next to her, Martha tenses, and from the other side of the fire pit, Toni’s agent, Dean, is already trying to catch her gaze, ready to signal to her not to go in this direction, not this early in the evening.

But Toni’s only looking at Gretchen Klein.

She forces a polite smile, just to be safe, and Gretchen lets out a laugh.

“There she is,” she says, a hint of something like satisfaction in her expression. “See, I was hoping we were going to have this conversation. It’s a little early in the process maybe, but no time like the present, am I right?”

Toni frowns, unsure what exactly to say to that. Next to her, Fatin’s watching with slightly peaked interest, and Shelby—

Shelby just looks very uncomfortable.

“What would you say, Toni,” Gretchen says, “about the authenticity of queer representation in contemporary film?”

Toni is quiet. She can feel everyone’s eyes on her, and for one conflicting, annoying second she wishes that Regan were here to take the question instead. Regan, who knows more about film than anybody else in Toni’s life, who had screamed when Toni had dropped the name Linh Bach over take out in Regan’s car one night. Regan, who has actual, substantive opinions on things like _the authenticity of queer representation in contemporary film._

Unlike Toni, who just accidentally stumbled into this circus. Who never dreamed of being anyone’s representation.

“I think some good work is being done,” she says, tentatively.

Gretchen leans forward. “You would say that, yes?”

Somehow the question sounds leading, but without any right answer. Like Toni can either agree and fumble her way through a defense she didn’t know she needed to prepare, or disagree and look like an idiot.

“I mean...” She runs a hand through her hair, wishes she had pulled it back. “I just don’t like the word _revolutionary_ ,” she says, then, more decisive than she feels. “Like, we’ve been here and we’ve always been here.” Gretchen stays quiet but Martha gives her the tiniest nod, prompting Toni enough to add, “So, I think we shouldn’t need to throw a fucking party over every queer movie that comes out, right? It should just be normalized. No big deal.”

“Toni,” Gretchen says, then, in the same voice all of Toni’s old social workers used to try on her whenever they thought she needed a reminder to _take it easy_ or _calm down_. “I don’t wish you to take my use of that word for anything it isn’t. I’m just saying, you’re making waves in this business and you’re not apologetic about who you are. And when it comes to _Hallucinogenic,_ that film is truly—”

“You don’t think it _is_ a big deal?”

Gretchen falls silent, and Toni’s head snaps up at the sound of Shelby’s voice.

She’s got one leg crossed over the other, confident and still looking every bit her sunshine self, like she belongs here, against the backdrop of these Hollywood hills. But there’s a bit of sharpness to her posture, too, a certain tension in her hands as she fumbles with a golden ring on her finger.

“Sorry?” Toni says, after a beat, not exactly sure what just happened.

“I mean, pardon me for interrupting,” Shelby says, with half a laugh, all Southern and _polite,_ her smile so sugary it makes Toni clench her hands. “But don’t you think it is big deal? That we’ve still got a real long way to go with—with—” She falters for just a second. “—queer representation.”

Something tightens in the center of Toni’s chest, small but sharp. “More queer movies have been released in the past year than any other year before.”

“Well, yeah,” Shelby counters, and Toni doesn’t know why this is happening, why it suddenly feels confrontational for no reason at all, even more so when Shelby adds, “But the question was about authenticity.”

“So?” Toni says, feeling her skin go hot.

Shelby arches an eyebrow. “Can we say all those movies actually showcase authentic representation?”

It’s wild, really.

This straight, white girl lecturing Toni on authenticity. 

“Don’t get me wrong,” Shelby goes on, before Toni can voice the thought. “I’m sure, there is some good work being done on that sort of thing, but—”

“What do you mean, _that sort of thing_?” Toni snaps, getting increasingly more annoyed.

Shelby’s eyes lock on hers. “When we’re talking about the authenticity of queer representation in contemporary film, I think what Gretchen is getting at here is the fact that—”

“How do you know what she’s getting at?”

“If you would let me finish any of my sentences,” Shelby says, sharply, but Toni doesn’t give her a chance.

“How many queer movies do you even know?” she cuts out, watching the way Shelby’s shiny attitude falters, just a bit. She presses right into it. “Since you’re such an expert on the topic of gay cinema. What movies have you seen?”

Shelby lets out a breezy laugh. “I hardly think that’s the point here.”

Next to her, Fatin whistles under her breath, though it’s not enough to draw Toni’s attention away from Shelby’s green eyes.

“No, let’s hear ‘em,” she says. “What’s got you thinking there’s not enough authentic representation?” She leans forward, echos of Regan’s voice in her mind as she pushes on. “Was it _Portrait of a Lady on Fire_ , which got nominated for the Palme d’Or? All the glowing revies for _Ammonite_? Did you, I don’t know, even fucking watch _Carol_?”

Shelby narrows her eyes at her. “I watched _Carol_ , alright? Everyone has watched _Carol._ Cate Blanchett is—” She cuts herself off. “The point is, those movies you’re talking about? They’re all period pieces aimed at making us think we’re so lucky to be alive in a time right now where we don’t have to face that... that type of scrutiny.”

“Scrutiny?”

Toni can’t believe this is happening, can’t believe she’s having this conversation with _Shelby Goodkind_.

“We’re supposed to feel lucky, watching those movies,” Shelby bites out. “Lucky that we get to be alive in different times.”

“Times _are_ different.”

“You don’t get it,” Shelby says, and Toni feels her breath catch in her throat by how _sure_ she sounds, how angry, suddenly. “We’re tricked. Tricked into thinking we’ve come such a long way, when the truth is that we haven’t. It wasn’t accepted then, and it’s isn’t accepted today. And just because you’re free enough to—” She takes a breath, collects herself. “I just mean that it _is_ a big deal, to some people, alright? That’s my point, ‘s all.” 

Toni feels hot all over. She feels annoyed and _lectured at_ and small _,_ and sure, Shelby might know a whole lot more about this business, might know how to talk about this stuff in the way Regan does, but she can’t just go ahead and speak about authenticity when she isn’t even—

“ _We_?” Toni fires back, because it’s the only thing she can hook onto. “That’s fucking rich coming from you.”

Shelby’s expression goes tense and there’s a spark of emotion in her eyes that Toni can’t quite read, can’t quite place from across the distance.

A heavy silence falls around them that just stretches on, until Thom, the toothpaste commercial guy, finally breaks it. “Alright,” he says, “Perhaps this is enough cinematic analysis for today. We’ve got a read to get to, after all.”

He smiles as he runs a hand through his hair and there’s a lightness to his voice, but Toni still hears the edge of sharpness under it that seems entirely aimed at her. The clear disapproval of her unprofessionalism, a reminder that this is Shelby Goodkind she is speaking to and she better _back off now._

It sounds protective, almost, and Toni sinks a little deeper in her chair.

Next to her, Martha seems unsure of where to look. Dean is staring into the fire like he’s lost all energy to be present at this gathering. Fatin is busy typing away on her phone.

The only one smiling is Gretchen Klein. 

:::

It’s got Shelby shaken, that much is clear.

Toni doesn’t want to feel guilty about what just happened, but when she watches the way Shelby’s fingers tremble on the pages of her script, she can’t deny that there’s a hint of discomfort lodged into her chest.

They’ve moved from the patio into Gretchen’s office to prepare for the scenes, just the three of them. But the only one who seems truly ready for any of this, is Fatin.

“I don’t get this,” she’s saying, staring at the pages for the pilot episode. “These girls literally wake up in some kind of scientific horror show with no memory of how they got there, and their first instinct is to track into the wilds? Not, like, I don’t know, try and contact someone’s dad or something?”

Shelby’s staring ahead in a kind of detached way.

Toni sighs, not particularly up for making conversation now, but realizing she doesn’t really have a choice. “Doesn’t Mercy’s dad, like, run that whole facility?”

“So?”

“So maybe no one’s dad is to be trusted,” Toni says, shortly, thumbing through her own pages.

Fatin just rolls her eyes. She leans back in the chair. “What’s up with the script not being finished, though? I mean, I’m all for a little, should I say, authenticity—” She wiggles her eyebrows at Toni in a way that’s entirely unnecessary. “—but writing and filming it episode by episode, is that even a thing?” 

Toni shrugs. “Don’t ask me.”

Fatin’s eyes land on Shelby, expectantly.

After a beat of silence, Shelby mumbles, “Sometimes.”

She doesn’t say anything else, and there it is again; that tiny pinch of guilt.

Toni stares at her another moment longer, waiting for Shelby to make eye contact. When she doesn’t, she leans forward just a bit. “Look, Shelby, if you’re feeling—”

“I’m fine,” Shelby cuts in, green eyes flashing to Toni with an intensity that knocks Toni back just a bit. “Let’s just get this over with so we can all get out of here.”

:::

They run through positioning. They run through lines and angles and timing, and if anything, the moment they turn to the scenes, Shelby seems to regain some determination, getting more focused and precise and a little less tense.

There’s three scenes to get through.

The first is between Fatin and Toni, when Mercy and Connor, their respective characters, first wake up in the facility. The second is between the three of them, with the narrative cutting forward and Vita, Shelby’s character, realizing she’s been chipped in her wrist and they have no way of escaping the experiment, no matter how far they run. And, finally, a third scene between Toni and Shelby, smaller and shorter, but in no way less relevant: Vita and Connor, trapped in a snowed-in cave, Vita getting hurt, and the quick-fire way everything turns into an argument.

She’s infuriatingly good, Shelby.

Professional, both in how she acts, and how she sets the two of them up for success at the same time; leaving the exact kind of tension between lines for Mercy’s sarcasm and for Connor’s contemplation; letting the role of Vita Jameson take over her mannerisms, her voice, her entire body.

It makes Toni stumble a bit.

They have to run through the snow cave scene three times. First because she can’t remember her lines or forgets to play off of Shelby’s cues, and then, because she’s too distracted by the ease with which Shelby pulls this off now that the scene is between them, the only thing to focus on.

Toni’s trying to do the same.

She’s trying to tap into the emotion of the lines, to fall back onto whatever elements of this character she can lean in to. But Shelby’s right in front of her, just an inch or so taller than Toni, all careful precision in her expressions, blonde hair somehow falling _perfectly_ , and part of Toni still can’t believe this is happening, that this is the girl who played Kelsi Summers, that this is _Shelby Goodkind_ , and she’s right here, close enough for Toni to touch. 

“You’re, uh—” She breaks character halfway through the scene, again. “Sorry, but can you back off a bit?”

Shelby’s expression goes hard. “ _What_?”

“It’s just—you’re standing very close to me,” Toni says, running a hand through her hair before waving vaguely at the limited space between their bodies.

Shelby blinks, like she didn’t realize. “Oh.”

“We probably don’t need that, uh...” Toni doesn’t knowing how to formulate the thought without sounding like an idiot. She tries, anyway. “I just don’t think the scene needs that kind of—eh—energy.”

Shelby’s green eyes narrow instantly. “What energy?”

“You know,” Toni says. “All this... fucking _tension,_ or whatever you’re putting into it.”

She’s unprepared, it turns out, for the way Shelby turns on her, for the sudden determination in her eyes, the hand on the hip, the scowl on her face. “It’s a tense scene, Toni.”

Unprepared, also, for the way her name sounds from Shelby’s lips.

“Yeah, but...”

From Gretchen’s office chair, Fatin is looking at them, observing with the slightest frown on her face. And the truth is, Toni _knows_ —she knows that, again, she’s pushing something completely irrational here, something that she shouldn’t be making such a big deal over, that she doesn’t even fully understand herself. But at the same time, she can’t control the way Shelby’s making her feel on edge and defensive, and—

“But what?”

Toni scoffs. “Just that you’re making it very...”

 _Weird,_ she wants to say.

But Shelby cuts in before she can get the word out.

“ _Gay_?” Her voice is pitchy and sharp, and Toni’s breath catches at the back of her throat, right as Shelby bites out, “Fuck you.”

There’s a moment where Toni’s shocked into completely silence, too caught off guard. Too caught, also, on the way Shelby’s eyes are flashing with anger, how her entire body has gone rigid, how her bottom lip is trembling, like the effort to say the word is already—

The door opens.

Gretchen Klein’s smile is as blinding as it’s been all night. “Everyone ready?”

* * *

The first time Shelby saw _Hallucinogenic_ , she went with her mom on a Tuesday night in the days between Christmas and New Year’s, and no one was talking about Toni Shalifoe yet.

She’d been home for the holidays — her real home, back in Texas — and it had been a bit of an adjustment, to say the least. _Sing Your Heart Out!_ had just wrapped its final season, there were no new projects on the horizon yet, and all of a sudden she’d found herself back in her small hometown, with people she hadn’t spoken to in years, and only a tiny movie theater to entertain herself with.

In retrospect, the fact that the conservative programming team of the theater even decided to show _Hallucinogenic_ , is insane.

She remembers feeling like she’d never seen anything like it. Like she was holding her breath the entire time, disappeared into the movie for the 118 minutes it lasted.

Weeks later, _Hallucinogenic_ would start to make its climb to the top; dark horse victories at all the festivals, praised by all the major critics, called ‘sensational’ and ‘devastating’ and ‘an ode to the power of raw emotion’. The film’s young stars — Rachel Reid, unknown for anything other than a few scattered supporting roles, and complete newcomer Toni Shalifoe — moving into the spotlight seamlessly.

That night in Texas, though, seated in an almost empty movie theater, next to a very shocked and very uncomfortable Jo-Beth Goodkind, Shelby, for a moment, had felt like the movie belonged only to _her_.

She’s reminded of it now, in Gretchen Klein’s office, watching Toni play the cameras like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

Toni, apparently, is better at the real thing than she is at rehearsals.

Clearly, when something on the line, _this_ happens.

“You don’t know anything about me,” Toni — Connor — says, and Shelby believes her.

Somehow, Toni’s instagram, the series of interviews she’d done for Variety Studio, and the YouTube supercut of Toni’s scenes from _Hallucinogenic_ that Shelby is embarrassed to admit she has watched more than once, have not adequately prepared her for meeting Toni in real life.

There’s a kind of intensity to her that feels completely destabilizing, and it’s not just because Toni is—

Because she looks—

Because not even these high definition cameras do any real justice to the color of Toni’s eyes and the shape of her—

Shelby digs her nails hard into the palm of her hand, snapping herself out of the thought with the same self-inflicted sharpness she used to chastise herself with for staring too long at girls at the pool when she was a teenager, for getting flustered at sleepovers when she was even younger.

The last thing she should be feeling right now is... is _that._

Forcing the last of her shakiness down, Shelby redirects her attention back to the scene in front of her.

From where he’s standing by the door, Thom’s eyes flash over to her, just for a moment, a barely perceptible frown in his brows that she can only read because they’ve come to know each other so well: _you good?_

She gives him a tight nod and tries to focus her attention on Fatin instead.

Fatin, who’s actually not half bad.

She’s a bit unpolished, sure. Not always hitting the exact right beats in her lines and not working off of Toni’s energy as seamlessly as they’ll need to for the real shoot. But it’s a read and they’ve only met each other an hour ago, and Fatin’s rolling with it in a way that’s pretty impressive. She’s relaxed and funny and manages to give Mercy—who Shelby had found pretty lifeless on paper—a real edge.

She focuses on Fatin.

Anything to direct her gaze away from the fear in Toni’s jaw, from the way she makes Connor’s layered panic look so _real_.

She doesn’t stare at Toni’s hands; her smooth, clean nails, the tiny tattoo on the side of her wrist. Doesn’t watch the line of Toni’s neck as she speaks. Doesn’t feel her breath hitch when Toni delivers the line, _I’m not fucking scared_ , with so much conviction that, for a second, Shelby forgets it’s actually an audition.

Maybe she’d care less about this, if it looked like acting.

But that’s the thing.

It doesn’t look like acting at all. It looks effortless; emotion in the quirk of Toni’s eyebrow, in the pull of her lip. It steals the breath from Shelby’s lungs. How much she manages to convey in a single look, even in a relatively easy scene like this one.

She can feel the effect on the rest of the room, too. Can feel the way Martha is beaming with pride, can feel Thom’s approval from the other side of the room.

She’s so in her head about it that she barely realizes that the first scene ends and it’s her cue to join in for the second.

“You ready?”

It’s Gretchen’s voice that brings her back to reality.

From the corner of her eye, Shelby can feel Toni watching her. She can still hear the echo at the back of her mind: the _can you back off_ , the _it doesn’t need that that kind of energy,_ the _all this fucking tension._

Her throat feels tight, but she swallows it down as best as she can. There’s a weird sort of static in her ears as she moves forward, in front of the cameras and into the frame.

She breathes in deeply, looks right at Toni as she says, “Of course.”

:::

She nails the first scene.

It’s the kind of feverish experience that only happens once in a while; where she hits every single one of her lines better than the one before, where she manages to make the entire room go quiet, where she blinks and the scene is over, she’s done it, and she’s done it _well._

She knows it from the way Thom looks at her, from the way Gretchen is trying to hide her excitement. Even Fatin arches an eyebrow at her, clearly impressed, and Shelby smiles her first real smile of the night.

There’s a selfish, prideful part of her that wants to turn to Toni and say, _see?_ A provocative, challenging part that wants to say, _did you really think I would fuck it up just because you thought you could mess with me for a second?_

Thing is—she doesn’t have to say it.

When she meets Toni’s eyes, there’s something in her expression that makes Shelby feel hot all over.

“Should we do the last one right away?” Shelby says, hand on her hip. “Or do you maybe need a break?”

Toni’s eyes narrow.

“I’m good,” she says. “I don’t need a break.”

:::

It works, it works, it works—

And then Toni steps up to her and does _that_ , and Shelby snaps out of the scene so badly that she can’t get back into it.

“I’m sorry, I’m—I can go again,” she tells Gretchen. “Just give me a second.”

Gretchen’s expression has changed. There’s a slight frown on her face and then she says, “I think we’re good actually. I’ve seen enough. Thank you, girls.”

And just like that, Shelby knows just how badly, just how abruptly, she screwed the whole thing up.

:::

She turns on Toni, the moment she can. “Why did you do that?”

Toni frowns. “Do what?”

They’re back on the patio. Toni had slipped out, maybe to smoke, and Shelby had followed without even thinking about it.

She can still feel the press of Toni’s fingers on her jaw, can still feel the proximity of their bodies, can feel the way Toni had looked at her, eyes run over with emotion, and maybe she’d care less about this, if it had felt like acting—

But that’s the thing about Toni Shalifoe.

She doesn’t _act._

“In the scene,” she bites out. “When they’re arguing and trying to figure out a way to get out of the cave, you weren’t supposed to touch me like that.”

“You were hurt,” Toni snaps back. “I mean, your character. She’s literally bleeding.”

Shelby exhales hard, knows it’s true, knows Toni didn’t do anything wrong, just acted on her instincts, and yet—

“You are the one who said we shouldn’t put that kind of energy into the fucking scene!” she bites out, and maybe it’s the fact that her voice goes pitchy, or the fact that she curses, but Toni looks pretty taken aback for a moment.

She’s quiet, just staring at Shelby with her eyes wide.

The moment stretches, long and uncomfortable, and Shelby can’t really take the way the air feels between them, so she bites out, “Just so you know, this is why they let us rehearse. It’s unprofessional to just do whatever the hell you want in an audition without informing your scene partner upfront.”

“I touched your jaw!” Toni bites out. “It was hardly even anything!”

“And how would you know?” Shelby says. “You’ve been acting for like, what, two months?”

It’s a low blow. She knows it. Can see it, too, in the way, Toni’s attitude trembles, right before the doubt shifts hard and fast into anger.

“If you’ve got something to say to me,” Toni says. “You better just say it.”

Shelby inhales sharply, conflicting impulses fighting for dominance as she thinks of saying, _you ruined this audition,_ of saying, _how did you get this good this fast without any formal training,_ of saying, _you think you know me, but you’re wrong._

“C’mon,” Toni presses. “Don’t get shy now. We both know you’re dying to tell me what you really think of me, so what are you waiting for?”

Shelby’s voice is as measured and cold as she can get it to sound. “I’m waiting for this night to end so that I never have to think about you ever again.”

Something flickers in Toni’s eyes, something that pulls hot behind Shelby’s navel, and she swallows, is about to turn around and leave, when—

“You two are a real fucking trip.”

Fatin’s leaning against the wall, cigarette between her fingers and a half-filled champagne flute in her other hand.

“Oh, no,” she adds with a grin. “Don’t stop on my account. It was just starting to get fun.”

Toni scoffs. “Whatever, I’m gonna head off.”

“Of course,” Shelby snaps, instantly annoyed again. “Ruin everyone’s night and then just leave, why not?”

Toni spins back to her. “ _You_ are the one who couldn’t even get to the end of the scene.”

“It was fine until you—”

“I did exactly what I was supposed to do. Just because you can’t handle—”

Fatin laughs, the sound of it so abrupt that it makes both of them fall quiet at the same time.

“You really don’t get it, do you?” she says, taking a drag from her cigarette. “It’s been, like, what, an hour and a half and you still haven’t realized what’s going on here? I figured if anyone was going to see through Gretchen Klein’s bullshit, it would be Disney’s golden girl and Linh Bach’s rainbow prodigy. But you bitches apparently like being played.”

It’s a lot to process at once.

“What are you talking about?” Shelby says, at the same time that Toni scoffs out, “ _Rainbow prodigy_?”

Fatin rolls her eyes.

“Fine,” she says. “Let me spell it out for you. This wasn’t an audition.”

Shelby hears herself laugh, cold and unsteady. “Look,” she says. “I know things work a little differently in the world of YouTube, but here, when you are asked to read lines in front of a camera and a team of executives, that’s called an audition.”

“Cute,” Fatin says, with a smile. “Real cute, Texas.”

Shelby makes an affronted sound that she’s too wound up to be embarrassed about. But before she can say anything, Toni already steps forward, toward Fatin. “What are you saying?” 

“I’m saying,” Fatin continues. “That they don’t care about what happened or didn’t happen in front of those cameras. They care about _this_.” She gestures to the three of them, and then, when neither of them reply adds, “What happened at that fire pit? They set that up. That thing about queer authenticity? Her fucking speech about female intimacy? She been baiting us all night.” Her eyebrow arches up. “It’s not an audition. It’s basically the first day of filming.”

Shelby’s chest feels tight, her heart racing faster than it has all night.

“In fact,” Fatin says. “I wouldn’t put it past her that those cameras were rolling the moment we entered that office and she’s seen the whole thing.”

It’s too much at once.

Shelby’s mind is going a million miles an hour, getting caught on different moments in flashes; Gretchen’s smile by the fire, the way Toni’s anger has been radiating off her all evening, seeping into the space between them; the way Shelby has been forced to think way too much about _representation_ and _queer cinema_ , despite the fact that the project wasn’t even pitched to her as a—

“That’s—” she starts. “That’s not—”

 _Possible,_ she wants to say, but she can’t get the word past her lips. Not possible. Or fair. Or legal for that matter.

Is it legal?

Fatin’s smile is slow and challenging. “I’m telling you, it wasn’t an audition. It was day one.” She raises her champagne flute. “You’ve given her exactly what she wanted. Welcome to the show.”

:::

“Did you know about this?”

Thom is quiet as he slows the car to a stop in the driveway of Shelby’s apartment complex. He keeps his hands on the steering wheel and doesn’t make eye contact with Shelby, but he doesn’t lie.

He says, “Which part?”

It feels like her throat closes off. “ _Jesus_ , Thom.” All of a sudden, the emotion she’s been trying to keep under control as best as she can all evening rises up at once. “You should have told me.”

“About which part, Shelb?” he says again, and this, she realizes, is how they’re going to talk about it. In the dark of his car, after the worst audition of her entire life; one that wasn’t even a real audition, apparently.

“You tell me,” she snaps. “The part about how it was a done deal from the beginning, apparently? The part about how it’s so freakin’ experimental that she’s going to feed off our actual emotions or whatever I’m supposed to think now?” Her voice shakes. “The whole thing about it being... being...”

Thom looks at her, the expression in his eyes different suddenly. “It’s not... necessarily going to be gay, Shelb.”

She makes a choked-off sound. “What the _fuck_ does that even mean?”

“I’m serious,” Thom rushes out. “It’s only a possibility. Nothing is set in stone. And—” His voice takes on a pleading quality. “I mean, we talked about it, didn’t we? That one night, about maybe one day doing something... in that direction. That’s why I pitched it to you in the first place.”

“I said _one day,_ ” Shelby fires back. “I said _maybe._ In the future. When I feel I can actually risk my whole life being—” Her voice catches and she can’t speak pas the emotion. “And you didn’t pitch it to me like that!”

“I figured you would say no,” Thom says. He cowers under her glare and then adds, “I thought, once I mentioned Toni Shalifoe, you’d realize there’d be the potential element of it being—”

“Fuck you, Thom,” she bites out, the second time she’s said the words tonight, and it’s so out of character for her, to lash out at people like this, especially to her manager.

But—

She can’t believe he set her up this way and now he’s trying to make it sound like it’s her fault that she didn’t realize.

Thom runs a hand through his hair, the way he does when he’s overwhelmed, and then he says, “Okay, you’re right. I’m sorry. I am. I should have told you.” He swallows thickly. “And if you don’t want it, it’s not happening. I promise. I... I would never make you do anything if you’re not up for it. You’ve got to know that.”

The sharp feeling in her chest spikes and she doesn’t want to cry, she doesn’t.

But she’s been so on edge the entire night and all of a sudden it’s just her and Thom, and it feels like betrayal, but he’s also the only one looking out for her. The only one who knows.

And he’s right, they did talk about it, that one night after _For Better or Worse_ got cancelled and they got drunk on tequila shots at his kitchen table, and all of a sudden, everything mixes together in her head—the fear and the shame and, still, the persisting desperate desire that got them to have that conversation in the first place; the wish to leave it all behind, to break free from her own life in whatever way necessary.

“She’s gonna know.” Her voice catches, but she can’t stop the words, can’t stop the panic from spilling over suddenly. “Gretchen. She’s gonna see right through me and she’ll know that I’m, that I like—and then she’ll put it in the show, and then my _dad_ —”

“Shelby...”

“No, Thom, you don’t understand,” she says, turning in her seat to face him. “There was this moment in the room when we were getting ready. And I wasn’t even doing anything, it wasn’t even anything conscious, and all of a sudden Toni was like, _can you back off,_ and I don’t know how I could even—like if they wanted us to—”

“Hey,” Thom says, gentle but firm. “Stop. Shelb, just take a breath first.”

She does.

She leans back into the seat and tries to breathe slowly, pressing her fingertips against her eyelids and finding her cheekbones wet with tears. She wishes she could disappear. Wishes the dark of the night would just swallow her already. Wishes she could _pray_ , like she used to do when she was younger, and—

“Toni’s intense,” she breathes out, the thought coming into her head uninvited. “I didn’t realize that she’s this...” She doesn’t know how to say it. “I mean, I don’t know if I could even do it. Either way. Work with her that closely.”

“You could do it,” Thom says, and he sounds sure. Shelby makes a quiet noise, half like a sob, and he adds, quickly, “If you... if you wanted to.”

She’s quiet for a second, but then the thought presents itself, pushy and insistent. “But what about her?”

“What _about_ her?”

Shelby’s voice sounds quiet in the confined space of the car. “What if she doesn’t want to? Work with... with me.”

Thom exhales slowly, then says, “I don’t know. Then, they’ll cast someone else. Or... if it all ends up falling through, I’ll find you a different project.”

It feels like a reality check, suddenly, the way this is still part of the industry. To realize that so much is out of her control, anyway. No matter how Shelby feels about it.

“Would be a shame, though,” Thom says. “Because I think it could be great.”

She’s hit by how genuine it sounds, how personal. Like he’s speaking, not as her manager, trying to figure out the next best steps in her career, but as someone who thinks it actually has some real value, some real potential.

“You think so?” she says, after a beat of quiet.

He looks at her. “I know there’s a lot on the line for you, and I know you’re scared. And sure, maybe she’s not what you expected. Maybe she’s difficult to work with. But you’ve done difficult before and besides...” He looks at her. “Gretchen wasn’t exactly wrong. About how we need more complex, layered characters.” He pauses, then adds, “And you weren’t wrong either, when you said that it _is_ a big deal, and we’re not there yet. In terms of representation.” He hesitates, almost like he doesn’t want to say the next part, but then he does it, anyway. “I think you could do a hell of a job when it comes to changing that. If you wanted.”

Shelby’s throat closes off.

She bites down on her bottom lip trying to keep it from shaking.

“Just give it some thought,” Thom says. “It won’t be an easy project. And we should speak about your boundaries and the potential pushback from Disney and your... your father, I guess.” He makes a point of meeting her eyes. “This thing, Shelb? It’s going to be challenging and provocative. But it’s also got the potential to make some big fucking waves.”

She thinks about the conversation at Thom’s kitchen table, over the summer. She thinks about the taste of tequila on her lips as she told him the truth; told him about her dad and about girls and about Becca.

She thinks about seeing _Hallucinogenic_ for the first time, breathless and captivated, wondering if she could ever pull off anything like it.

She thinks about how her whole life, people have thought she could only ever handle easy and safe and _good_ ; and now Gretchen Klein is handing her this messy, out of control, experimental show that’s thrown her off her game before it’s even started.

She thinks about Toni’s angry eyes and Fatin’s mocking smile, and Gretchen herself, looking like she can’t waiting to see what Shelby will do with it all.

She runs it over in her head, then says, “You think it will be worth it?”

Thom doesn’t even wait a beat.

“Oh, yes,” he says. “I think it’s going to be wild.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N:
> 
> How's that? I've got some... interesting things coming up for this story that I think y'all will like.  
> Let me know any thoughts you have about this!


	3. III.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N:
> 
> My mind's been all over the place and this is the only thing I could focus on, so here ya go: have some tension, some Fatin commentary and a whole lot of incapability to deal with attraction on both parts. Happy valentines day :)

She thinks about texting Becca.

It’s a _real_ bad idea.

And yet, when she receives the final version of the script for episode one of what is now titled _The Wilds_ — which, if Shelby didn’t know any better, sounds like something Thom himself has pitched to Gretchen — she seriously considers finding Becca’s name in her list of contacts.

There are other ways to do this, of course. She could probably find a dozen people who’d be more than willing to discuss the script with her: the gaps in the scenes, the questionable directions. People are who not Becca Gilroy who would happily read over the last scene with her and tell her she’s not crazy. 

But somehow the only person Shelby wants to speak to about it, is Becca.

She would do it, maybe, if it wasn’t for the fact that she hasn’t talked to Becca in nearly eleven months. It’d be way too much for Shelby to suddenly reach out and ask Becca if the vague wording in the script means she’s supposed to kiss her co-star or not.

Her co-star who’s a girl.

Her co-star who’s _Toni Shalifoe_ , confirmed and everything.

They haven’t talked about the night of the chemistry read. From Toni’s side, her team has taken care of all official proceedings, as has Thom for Shelby. It’s been about a month since their night at Gretchen’s house, but all of a sudden, everything is moving really fast.

Shelby’s barely begun to wrap her head around the fact that this is really happening, and now she’s set to get on a plane tomorrow morning to fly out to Vancouver for the pilot episode. 

She hasn’t packed a single thing.

The only thing she’s done over and over again, is read through that script, trying to make sense of it.

Her phone _pings_ on her nightstand and she rolls over on her bed to make a grab for it. It’s Thom, reminding her, in not so subtle language, to post on her socials today. She sighs in frustration, then throws both her script and her phone down next to her as she gets up and walks over to the mirror.

She’s not exactly dressed for social media today, wearing barely any make-up, an old pair of gray sweats and a bright pink _Sing Your Heart Out!_ hoodie that has a faded Disney Channel logo on it. She frowns at her reflection, actually feeling a tiny pinch of shame at the fact that she’s wearing her own merch.

 _Sing Your Heart Out!_ ended two years ago.

Annoyed, she pulls it up over her head, flinging it into the corner when her phone starts buzzing again. Cursing her manager for getting on her back about this before she’s even had the chance to text him back, she picks it up.

“Yes, Thom, I said I’d do it,” she says, bringing the phone up to her ear and feeling more stressed-out than she wants to admit. “I wasn’t just sitting around, I was actually reading the script and getting ready to pack so you can—” 

“Um, hi.”

Shelby’s breath catches in her throat, stealing the rest of her sentence. It takes her a second to find her voice, just enough for Toni Shalifoe to make an uncomfortable sort of sound before saying, “It’s Toni. Are you—I mean, is this a good time?”

_Lord._

“Yeah!” Shelby manages. “Yeah, no, it’s—perfect.” She cringes. “I mean, I didn’t expect your call, but it’s definitely—I mean, you’re good.”

Toni exhales like this is as bad for her as it is for Shelby, and Shelby tells herself to get it _the fuck_ together. Right now.

There’s a bit of empty static sound on the other side of the line and then Toni says, “Right, so, are you—”

“Wait,” Shelby says, cutting Toni off, reaching for the little white box on her nightstand. “Sorry, just a sec. Let me get my headphones, I can’t hear you very well.”

“Oh,” Toni says. “Oh, yeah, actually, now that I think about it, I guess we could also—”

The line cuts short abruptly and for a moment, Shelby is so extremely confused that she just sits frozen on the bed in her sweatpants and pink sports bra, not knowing what the hell just happened. She doesn’t know why Toni’s calling. She doesn’t even know how she got Shelby’s number. But right as she’s about to type out a shaky message to Thom, her phone starts buzzing again.

This time her own reflection is staring back at her.

FaceTime.

The call’s running through _FaceTime_.

_Holy mother of—_

She waits and waits, sits paralyzed as the phone just continues to buzz. And there is no way out because Toni _knows,_ knows that she’s right here. They were speaking not even twenty seconds ago, so Shelby can’t just go ahead and pretend like she—

With every bit of composure she can muster, she shoves her AirPods in and slides her thumb across the screen.

“Hi, there.”

She tries to force a smile, hates how shaky it looks.

Toni’s outside, leaning back in some kind of lounge chair. She’s dressed in a black vintage band tee, that looks effortlessly cool. Her hair is up and she’s squinting into the sun, leaning forward and more into the frame as she says, “So, Marty’s always going on and on about how I should be using FaceTime, so that people can see when I’m, like, talking shit. So I figured I should...” She trails off, a slight frown appearing between her eyebrows. “Were you working out just now?”

Shelby angles the phone away from her bra so quickly that it nearly slips from her hand. “No,” she says, face burning. “No, I was just—sorry, let me—”

She throws her phone down on the bed, slips back into the pink Disney hoodie, and prays to God and every single saint she can think of that Toni won’t comment on it.

“Okay, I’m here,” she says. 

Toni is quiet for a second, and then she says, “So... Flying out tomorrow, right?”

“Right,” Shelby says, not even sure what else to add to it.

“You were reading the script?” Toni says after another awkward second. 

Shelby tries to look calm. She tries to pretend like this is normal. “Yeah, just getting through it.”

 _For the fifth time,_ she doesn’t say.

Toni nods and there’s a bit of tension in her jaw now. “What did you think about it?”

It’s a tricky question. Shelby bites down on her bottom lip and tries to construct a coherent thought, any thought, really, anything beyond the fact that her and Toni Shalifoe, who picked an actual fight with her the last time they saw each other, are _FaceTiming_ right now.

“It’s... different,” she says, eventually. “Lots of... possibilities.”

Toni nods, and then, “Yeah, about that—”

 _Here we go,_ Shelby thinks.

“Look,” she cuts in, before Toni can finish the sentence. “I know that last scene reads as very intimate, but I’m sure we could find a way to work around it.”

A slight frown appears between Toni’s brows and she parts her mouth like she’s about to say something, but Shelby talks over it.

“Most likely, we could push it all the way up to, like, episode three. Or maybe four even.” She lets out a nervous laugh. “I mean, they’ve only just met each other and there’s that whole fight they have in the cave, so I don’t know about you, but to me, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense that they’d just start—” Her voice catches at the back of her throat. “— _making out._ ”

Toni makes a choked-off sound. “Jesus, what?”

Shelby can feel the blush rise on her cheeks. “Is that—” She runs a hand through her hair. “Is that not what you were thinking?”

Toni’s eyes are wide and shocked, and then her expression changes and there’s a hint of irritation on her face now, too. Like Shelby’s got it all wrong and she can’t believe she’s actually hearing this.

“I wasn’t thinking about it at all,” is what Toni says, and she sounds a bit flat, shut off and annoyed, and Shelby is painfully sure, suddenly, that she should have called Becca after all.

Apparently, she can’t even interpret a scene correctly anymore.

“Oh,” she says. “Well, I just thought—”

“All I wanted to say was that it looks like we’ve got a lot of scenes together,” Toni says. “So we should probably try to, like, be civil to each other when we’re on set. That’s it.” She stares hard into the camera, and then, almost like an afterthought, she adds, “My manager told me to make this call.”

It doesn’t do anything to soften the punch.

In fact, it’s cold in a way that Shelby wasn’t entirely ready for.

Feeling off-kilter, she runs a hand through her hair, trying to keep her mind from spinning, trying to figure out why it’s almost like Toni’s sudden frustration is right here in the room with her, despite the fact that the connection is digital.

“Right,” she says, finally. “Yeah, I can do civil.”

Toni rolls her eyes. “Cool.”

The silence that follows is strained. Without the next part of the conversation to focus on, Shelby’s annoyingly distracted by the way the sunlight glows on Toni’s face. It causes a conflicting mess of thoughts in her mind. How are they ever going to get through months of working together? But also: how _else_ was she supposed to read that last scene if it’s not a kiss scene?

“I’d better start packing,” she says, then.

“Yeah, okay,” Toni says, and then hangs up without saying goodbye.

Shelby drops her phone onto her mattress a bit too carelessly, exhaling hard and pressing her fingers to her temples for a second. She allows herself ten more seconds of this feeling, and then she gets up to pull her suitcase from her closet.

Time to pack up her life.

:::

Eventually, she manages to comply with Thom’s request to post on her social media. She changes into a better top, slaps a bit of make-up on her face and then posts a few snapshots on her instagram story, hinting about a new secret project she’s about to start but can’t share details of yet.

She half hates it, but can’t be bothered to take down. She knows it won’t get a lot of hype, anyway. Fatin’s way ahead of her in the instagram game and Toni—

Shelby doesn’t want to think about Toni right now.

Her phone buzzes and Thom has texted her a screenshot of the story she just posted, along with a _thank you_ and a string of vague emotions that make zero sense, even in the context of their messages. He’s probably as stressed out about this as she is.

Uninvited, Shelby’s mind flits back to the mess of the FaceTime conversation she had with Toni.

And then—

She wonders again how Becca would react to her reaching out.

The only way she ever finds out anything about Becca these days is through irregular appearances on social media and whatever her mom will let slip when they speak to each other on the phone. Though, that comes with its own set of complications. 

She wonders if Becca even knows she’s doing something different.

Before she can really hold back the impulse, she’s navigating to her own instagram story, the one she just posted. The views are already coming in, despite the fact that it’s barely been a minute. For a moment, she realizes it’s going to be pointless, not to mention, freakin’ _pathetic_ to check whether Becca has seen it, but then her eyes catch on something else, and the thought of Becca is instantly wiped off her mind.

They don’t follow each other.

Not yet.

But here it is, right at the top of her viewer list, along with the feeling like the username is coming at her in bold—that’s how loud it looks: _toni_shalifoe_ , verified and all.

:::

Leah Rilke is the exact kind of girl that Shelby’s never gotten along with on set.

She’s pushy in a kind of passive-aggressive way that is too subtle to really get mad about. She seems to be on some kind of alternative wavelength half the time and seems to think no one but her truly gets what needs to happen. And yet, she walks around like she can’t quite believe she got roped into this shitty job—which, fair enough, if Shelby had to be Gretchen Klein’s personal assistant, she’d also be a little pissed off probably.

There’s a lot of ground to cover in the first few days. So many people to meet, so many set dynamics to figure out. From the make-up and hair department to the camera crew, from the writers to the assistant-directors. They get a tour, both of the studio grounds in Vancouver where they will be filming most indoor scenes, and the widespread outdoor areas about an hour’s drive away where they’ll do all nature shoots.

It’s overwhelming, how real it all feels, but it’s also exciting, in a way. More so than Shelby had thought it would be.

It’s been a while since she’s been on a set, especially after _For Better or Worse_ got cancelled so abruptly she didn’t even realize she’d never return. She’s also never been on a set like _this_ : so big, with so many people involved. So much money being pumped into it, despite the fact that they don’t even know if their pilot will get picked up.

Gretchen seems to think it’s a done deal, though, but Shelby knows.

There’s always a risk.

Looking around, Shelby feels like she can’t quite access the reality that this is finally happening again.

 _Sing Your Heart Out!_ had been big in its own way. But Disney kept always made sure to keep the reigns short and she’d been so young when she got started with it. There wasn’t a lot of freedom that came with that job.

And now, all of a sudden, she’s in Canada to film the most experimental project of her entire life.

“—and don’t forget that you have a meeting with Gretchen and Audrey at ten,” Leah is saying, snapping Shelby back to reality. “Don’t make them wait.”

She slams her a4-sized planner closed with a loud _snap_ and exits the board room that they were asked to meet in without saying anything else. 

Fatin shakes her head at the door, leaning back in her chair. “She’s really fun, isn’t she?” 

Toni just makes a scoffing sort of sound and then yawns, leaning forward onto the table like she hasn’t slept in days. “Fuck, I could really use some coffee.”

“It’s 9.24,” Shelby points out, annoyed for no reason at all.

“So?” Toni says. “Is there, like, a restriction on when we’re allowed to drink coffee that I’m unaware of?” She peaks up, hand on the table, looking more than awake enough to scowl at Shelby. “Am I about to be subjected to another one of your insightful lectures about how the world of cinema works?”

Shelby rolls her eyes. “That’s not even what I—”

Her phone buzzes and she falls silent, feeling a sharp rush of panic at the word that flash across the screen.

_Daddy._

This was bound to happen. Still, Shelby bites down on her bottom lip so hard it hurts, wishing it wouldn’t have happened this _soon_ already.

How is she even going to explain—

“Don’t you want to take that?” Fatin says.

“Right.” Shelby manages a smile quick enough, already reaching forward and sliding her thumb across the screen of her phone. “Daddy, hi.”

She’s vaguely aware of Toni’s eyes following her as she makes her way out of the room and into the hallway of the hotel they’re staying at for now. They’ll most likely get accommodation on set when they start shooting outside in two weeks’ time—according to Leah’s schedule—but for now, they’re in the studio, and therefore, at the hotel.

Dave Goodkind doesn’t get mad very often, but Shelby recognizes it in his tone right away, even though his words are bright as always. “Mornin’, baby. How’s it going?”

Vaguely, Shelby thinks that Thom could have prepped her a little better for this. But then again, she’s always left to her own devices when it matters most, isn’t she?

“I’m good,” she says, trying for light and breezy. “I’m—” 

“What’s all this nonsense I’m hearin’ about a new project you’re doing?”

There it is.

She leans back against the wall.

“Daddy,” she says, then. “I was going to tell you—”

“But you didn’t though, did you, honey?” he says, cutting her off again with the same sugar-sweet southern drawl she knows some people despise in _her_ voice sometimes. “Had to find out you’re filming again from your mother, who said saw something on your instagram, of all places. Now, Shelbs, when were you plannin’ on lettin’ your old dad know about this?”

She takes a deep breath. She takes another one, steadies herself against the wall, and then tells him as much as she can.

She drops Gretchen Klein’s name fast, knowing that the fame of it, at least, will make some difference, though not much. She says she can’t share many details of the project because they don’t know many details yet, which is half-truth and half-lie. She says she’s in Vancouver, and tries not to flinch too much at the way her dad _does_ lose his temper about his daughter getting on a plane and leaving without telling anyone.

“I’m twenty-one,” she tries, but it’s the wrong thing to say because her dad instantly lectures her about respect and being grateful and the house she grew up in, and it makes Shelby glad enough she didn’t push it by adding, _I make my own decisions now_.

After about thirty minutes of going back and forth, Gretchen and Audrey round the corner of the hallway. Shelby gives them a short nod in acknowledgement and then tries to remind her father as gently as she can that she has a meeting to get to.

Her father scoffs, says he will hear the rest from Thom, then, and proceeds to hang up before Shelby can add anything else to the conversation.

Gretchen has already walked ahead into the board room, but Audrey has paused.

“Ready for the meeting?” she says.

“Just one moment,” Shelby says. “I’ll be right in.”

She leans her head against the wall. 

It was both better and worse than she thought it would go.

Better, when she realizes that so far, at least, it seems like her dad is not about to get on the first outgoing plane to come drag her back to Texas. Worse, when she opens the palm of her left hand and notices the indents of her own nails marking up her skin; like tiny, bleeding signal warnings of just how stressed-out the conversation has made her.

When she gets back into the board room, she tries to look like everything’s fine. 

Gretchen and Audrey have taken the seats at the head of the table and are talking to Toni and Fatin already.

Shelby keeps her head down and doesn’t hear much of the first minutes of the meeting. It’s not until she looks up, finally, that she notices Fatin is frowning at her, looking just the slightest bit concerned.

 _You good?_ she mouths at Shelby, and Shelby doesn’t exactly like Fatin yet, but they’ve known each other for a few days now, and she knows, coming from Fatin, it’s considerate enough to make her smile weakly.

 _All good,_ she mouths back.

Fatin gives her a sort of unconvinced _suit yourself_ shrug, but still pushes a can of La Croix towards her. When Shelby takes it, her fingers are still shaking.

Toni’s looking at her from across the table, but Shelby doesn’t meet her eyes.

:::

“You are the ones building this world,” Gretchen says. “It comes with great opportunity but also responsibility.” She taps her pen to her notebook, and then leans forward, making sure she’s got all of their attention. “We’re trying something new here. Something intimate and engaging, both for us as creators as for the public. As you might have noticed, the scrips are not conclusive.”

Fatin makes a face that indicates they’d all be idiots not to have noticed it, but Gretchen chooses to ignore it.

“We’ve got a very experienced team of writers here, who will watch the developments in each episode closely and adapt accordingly. There’s an outline, of course. We know where we want to take this in the end. But when the process demands it, we will divert.”

Toni frowns a bit. “What does that mean, _watch the developments closely_?”

Gretchen smiles, like she’s been waiting for this question. “Well, reception of course.”

It takes a moment for it to click for Shelby. “You mean...” she asks, voice wavering slightly. “...audience engagement?”

Gretchen just smiles.

“I don’t get it,” Fatin says. “Are you saying this is gonna be some fucking choose-your-own-adventure kind of show?”

Gretchen eyes Audrey, giving her the cue to pick it up.

“Yes, and no,” Audrey says. “There’s a process, of course. We work according to outline as much as possible. But at the same time, we want this to be a heightened emotional experience for the viewers. We want to figure out what makes them care, what elements of our storytelling methods they are invested in. We would never blindly cater to their needs, of course.”

Gretchen gives a short nod in agreement, though it’s clear from both Toni’s and Fatin’s faces that this isn’t nearly as obvious to them as it is to the women sitting at the head of the table.

“But at the same time,” Audrey goes on, “It’s time for something new, you know? Something different from your average Netflix series. We don’t want to create something that people watch over the course of one weekend and subsequently forget about.”

The silence that follows is a bit uncomfortable, but not necessarily strained. Shelby knew when she was signing up for this, it would be experimental. It’s just a matter of _how_ experimental.

“So, how would that work?” she asks.

Gretchen smiles, then says, “Six one-hour long episodes. To start with. We shoot one at a time. Six weeks between the release of each episode to build suspension. We make sure to work one episode ahead so we don’t run into scheduling issues. The three of you will be in close contact with the writers. If you’ve got any questions, ask Nora Reid. We’ve decided to take her on after her excellent work on _The Chemical Science of Clouds_.” She nods at Toni. “I believe you know her, Toni?”

Toni shrugs. “Not really, but I know her sister.”

They all do.

Rachel Reid.

Shelby’s seen _Hallucinogenic_ more than once.

“Excellent,” Gretchen says. “Well, if you have any questions about scripts, reach out to Nora. For now, it’s important that you don’t let yourself be intimidated by the uncertainty. If anything—” She leans forward. “History has proven that us women, we tend thrive in uncertainty. Get ready for filming tomorrow.”

She smiles, and not for the first time, Shelby feels her heart start to race.

::: 

She’s on her way back from the gym, when she recognizes Toni’s voice.

They’ve spent the rest of the day apart and Shelby has tries to prepare for tomorrow the best way she can; drinking water, listening to her playlists, running her lines until she knows them perfectly. She’s spent some time trying to feel out her character more, trying to get in this girl’s head a little bit, even though there’s not a lot of foundational material to build on. Eventually, it made her restless enough that she felt like sweating it out at the hotel gym.

It’s unplanned, though, to run into Toni on her way back.

“—been trying my fucking best, okay? But I can’t help it that pretty much every minute of my day is booked for now.”

Shelby stops dead in her tracks.

Toni’s voice is coming from just around the corner of the hallway, and she’s clearly speaking to someone on the phone, because Shelby’s only able to hear snippets.

“No, Regan, I _know_ , I’m just saying—” 

She doesn’t mean to eavesdrop.

Of course not.

She’s about to push around the corner and just rush through her room, but then she overhears Toni say, “Yeah, maybe we _should_ break up.”

Shelby freezes. Something hot and uncomfortable coils in her stomach. She’s biting on her bottom lip without really knowing why and all of a sudden she’s wishing she could be anywhere but here. Anywhere, but overhearing how Toni—

“Regan, don’t even try—”

Toni cuts herself off, making an incredulous sound at whatever the response is on the other side of the line. Then, she bites out, “Yeah, well fuck you too!”

There’s a slamming sound, almost like Toni’s hand collides with the wall, and then there’s a deafening sort of quiet.

It takes Shelby a moment to find her footing.

Part of her hopes that Toni will have disappeared, but when she rounds the corner, she’s still standing there, leaning back against the wall, running a hand through her hair. She definitely looks a little shaken, a little beat up, like the effort to keep it together is costing her. But when her eyes lock on Shelby’s, everything in Toni’s body hardens instantly.

“What?” she snaps, before Shelby’s even said anything.

Shelby takes a step forward. “You okay?”

Toni rolls her eyes. “Like you care.”

Shelby can feel her brows furrow. She takes another uncertain step forward, unsure if she should just push past Toni and leave this for whatever it is, or if it’s her responsibility to make sure Toni is okay. If not as a friend, then as a co-star.

“Look,” she says, but her breath catches in her throat when Toni looks at her, actually looks at her, _fully_ looks at her.

Her eyes drag over Shelby’s body with a belated sort of focus, and Shelby feels her face go hot.

She’s got a fluffy hotel towel wrapped around her shoulders, but she’s still in her workout clothes; a white pair of mesh shorts and pink sports bra. Incidentally, the exact same one she was wearing when—

“Could you be wearing any less clothes?” Toni snaps. Her eyes are nothing but frustration and anger. “God, you’re so fucking obsessed with yourself.”

Vaguely, Shelby realizes this for what it is. At the back of her mind, she can recognize the need to lash out at people as a way to deal with being hurt, can recognize the lack of sense in what Toni is saying. 

But still, the hot and burning feeling flares like a torch.

“ _Excuse me_?”

“You heard me,” Toni fires back easily.

But Shelby’s having none of this now.

“You need to take it down a notch.” Her voice is strained with anger, but she won’t ease up. “I realize you must be going through something right now, but you better clean your act up real fucking quick or you’re off this project.” 

Toni narrows her eyes at her, dark and challenging. “On whose authority? Yours?” She shakes her head. “You don’t get how this works.”

“No, _you_ don’t get it,” Shelby snaps back, and she’s really, _truly_ angry now. “This project—this is a big deal to me, okay? There’s a lot on the line, like way more than you realize, and I need it to work. I need it to—” Something cracks in her voice, but she draws the last bit of bite from her rage. “I’m not going to let anyone fuck it up. Not even you.”

Toni just stares at her.

Then, she says, “You can’t get me fired.”

Shelby narrows her eyes. “Watch me.”  
  


* * *

  
“You look like hell.”

Toni tries to ignore Fatin the best she can, but there’s no way. For someone who claims she ‘doesn’t do mornings’ across all her social media platforms, Fatin’s surprisingly awake at this hour. 

“Didn’t sleep well,” Toni mumbles.

Fatin, of course, wiggles her eyebrows. “Girlfriend keep you up? Sexting is really underrated, in my opinion.”

_Fuck._

“Not my girlfriend anymore.”

Toni makes sure to avoid Shelby’s eyes as she says it, but she still picks up on the uncomfortable way Shelby shifts next to her. Though, maybe that’s because Fatin apparently insists on talking about sexting at seven in the morning.

In any case, they’re not off to a relaxed start to their first day of filming.

Toni would be lying if she isn’t a little bit upset about Regan. It’s not the first time, they’ve broken up but it’s definitely one of the uglier ones.

Regan’s been claiming that Toni has been messing up for months, that she’s too involved with other things to really pay attention to her girlfriend, that she barely even knows what goes on in Regan’s life because they never see each other anymore.

It’s not a new fight; their disagreements about space and time, and how Toni’s never willing to _talk_ about anything, how — according to Regan — she turns everything into a fight instead.

In a way, they’ve been having this particular one since they started dating at the beginning of senior year, almost three years ago now. They lasted eight months until their first break-up. Since then, it’s been a consistent back and forth; everything from cold months where they don’t even talk to each at all to desperate phone calls in the middle of the night, from awkwardly trying to be friends and seeing other people to having make-up sex in the bathroom of the airport the second Toni’s back from filming.

She’s feeling like there’s no way they’re ever going to get it completely right again, that most of what they have is based on a desire to go back to those first eight months together. A desire that’s turned more and more into an unattainable fantasy—one that makes Toni bitter and quiet as she lets a girl called Dot fix her make-up between scenes.

She doesn’t try to go deep into conversation, which Toni is grateful for, but whatever she says, she says in the same Southern accent as Shelby, and that just makes things worse.

She’s mad at herself that she can’t shake it off. Even more so than her break-up with Regan. Mad at herself, that throughout the whole routine of it — hair and make-up, wardrobe and styling, scene rehearsals and equipment checks — Toni can’t stop thinking about what Shelby said last night. About the importance of the project; how she needs it to work, how, apparently, there’s a lot on the line for her. 

She doesn’t know what to make of it and it’s making her unfocused. Thankfully, her first scenes don’t require much in terms of actual acting: she mostly needs to be confused and delirious as her and Fatin wake up in the scientific center, strapped to all sorts of machinery with no memory of how they got there.

But the more she thinks about what Shelby said, the more she realizes it doesn’t really make sense. As far as she can tell, Shelby Goodkind doesn’t really _need_ any kind of project to make her more successful. She’s successful enough on her own. Even since her break from Disney. Even besides any filming. The model work she does, the instagram sponsorships, all the people who take absolutely no issue making money off Shelby’s looks.

Which—

Toni feels her skin go a bit hot at the thought. It’s not her fault that she’s been forced to see Shelby in a fucking bra twice in one week, but she’s irritated at how quickly her mind supplies the visuals. Irritated that she couldn’t stop herself from staring last night; the tight fit of the material, the thin layer of sweat that still clung to Shelby’s skin, the way her abs had flexed when she charged towards Toni to _yell_ at her.

“You doin’ alright over here?” Dot’s back again, ready to touch up on Toni’s foundation. “You look a little flushed.”

Toni forces herself not to scowl.

“Just a bit hot with all the lights,” she says, and Dot nods like it’s a good enough answer.

:::

At the end of the first day, Gretchen tells them she’s proud, and for a moment, Toni feels some sort of ease settle over her. She didn’t mess it up. Despite everything. Despite the break up, despite the fight, despite the fact that she’s barely slept and couldn’t focus on anything, she’s still managed not to screw it up.

It’s something.

For a second, her eyes meet Shelby’s.

Shelby’s expression is neutral, not impressed but also not annoyed—and the thing is that, if anything, Toni has _tried_ today. They might not be cool with each other. They might not really understand each other very well. But this is a job, and Shelby had been right last night: Toni’s not allowed to screw it up.

Another moment passes between them, and it’s not exactly understanding, but it’s a compromise maybe. A decision that, for now, at least, they try. 

:::

Fatin makes them go out after the first week of filming, to celebrate.

What exactly they’re supposed to be celebrating is unclear, since they’re very much in the middle of shooting, but Fatin won’t take no for an answer. She’s even managed to convince Dot from the hair and make-up department into coming along.

She’d tried to ask Leah, too, but Leah had just frowned and ignored the question, burying her nose back into her a4 planner like it’s a New York Times bestseller.

Toni won’t be surprised if they’ll all be reprimanded by Gretchen tomorrow morning, but that’s a thing to worry about later. For now, the only thing she can concern herself with is how much of this impulsive adventure is currently being posted to Fatin’s instagram.

“Don’t go live,” Toni says. “I swear if you go live, Fatin, I’m never speak—”

“Relax,” Fatin says. “It’s just my stories. Gotta feed the fans a bit, you know?”

Toni rolls her eyes, sips her drink instead, tries to dance a bit, to match Fatin’s moves even though the music is shitty. Tries, more importantly, to keep her eyes away from the bar where Shelby’s currently talking to Dot and smiling so enthusiastically that it makes Toni annoyed, even with all this distance between them.

Every time Toni looks, Shelby is laughing and touching Dot’s forearm with her fingers, and they must be bonding over the good old state of Texas, so Toni’s not exactly wishing she was over there, but it would be better if she wasn’t the only one stuck posing for Fatin’s camera.

If not for the fact that Shelby would probably serve better looks.

The thought enters Toni’s mind before she can hold it off, and she instantly brings her drink to her mouth, wishing it was stronger.

It must be because she isn’t _used_ to it yet, she decides.

Toni knows Shelby from tv, knows her from billboards and interviews and photoshoots in magazines. Knows her in a two-dimensional, fantasy-based sort of way that’s mostly the result of a little too much time spent typing the words _Kelsi Summers_ into the search bars of school computers during after-hours when she was supposed to be in detention.

She isn’t used to seeing Shelby like this. With a drink in her hand, in the middle of a club, completely clad in black. With her hair pulled up, the long line of her neck exposed, drawing Toni’s attention to it over and over.

They don’t spend a lot of time in anything other than their characters’ outfits, so of course, Toni’s going to be a little taken aback by Shelby’s blood-red lipstick, the skintight leather pants, and the lacy, high-collared top she’s wearing now.

(“We’re going out?” Shelby had said, when Fatin had suggested the idea earlier today, and Toni had figured she would think it unprofessional and unnecessary, had been half ready to comment something mean about Disney and being a good girl or whatever—but Shelby had just smiled and said, “Cool, just let me shower and change before we leave”, walking out of her room an hour later looking like _that_ ; like some unfair, direct manifestation of Toni’s feverish teenage dreams; a look that would have given her sixteen year old self a heart attack; a look that almost managed to give her a heart attack either way—which is why she’s been in a bad mood all night; she will rather die than admit out loud just how good Shelby looks, but _fuck it,_ she does.)

“What’s the deal with the two of you, anyway?”

It takes Toni a second to hear Fatin over the music. “What?”

“The deal,” Fatin says. “With you and Shelby. All this...” She waves her hand. “Drama.”

Toni just frowns, and apparently it’s enough reason for Fatin to push herself forward, to hook one arm around Toni’s neck rather roughly, so that Toni can hear her when she says, “Did you, like, work together on some other project and the whole thing blew up? Were you high school best friends who had a fall out?” She moves back a bit, just enough for Toni to see her grin. “Did you hook up once and she broke your heart or something?”

“ _What_ —” Toni sputters. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Shelby’s not even—”

“Then what happened?” Fatin cuts in. “I swear, every time I turn, one of you is looking at the other like it’s a whole thing.” She glances over Toni’s shoulder, then says, “Case in point.”

Toni turns, just a bit. Sure enough, Shelby’s watching them, though she turns back to Dot the second Toni makes eye contact, causing a strange rush of tension behind Toni’s navel.

Fatin just shakes her head. “See?” She points a finger at Toni and then at the bar. “This is why I don’t get tight with girls.” 

“Shut up,” Toni says, feeling her cheeks go red for no reason at all. She’s hoping it’s too dark for Fatin to tell. “There’s nothing, okay? If it wasn’t for this fucking project, I would never even _speak_ to Shelby.”

It’s a bit harsh, especially considering the fact that they’ve actually had a relatively okay first week. But Toni is so angry at herself for this — for the hot and conflicting and inconvenient feeling she’s been recognizing for days already as attraction — that she can barely take it.

Fatin just stares at her. A slight frown appears between her brows. “Are you an Aries?” she says, then.

“What?” Frustration lights up in Toni’s chest. “Who the fuck cares! _God._ ” She downs her cup, then snaps, “I need another drink.”

She turns right as Fatin says, “So, yes, then.”

:::

“Oh, hey.”

Toni looks up. Shelby’s looking a little uncomfortable, pausing as if she isn’t sure whether to step outside or not, and for a second, Toni feels a little bad about it.

“I just wanted to get some air,” Shelby says, and the guilt intensifies, since apparently, Shelby feels like she needs to explain herself for being in the very public space outside the club.

Toni nods, then holds out her pack. “Want one?”

Shelby stares at it, blinks for a second as she watches Toni take a drag of her cigarette, then says, “I’m good.”

“You don’t smoke?”

Shelby exhales a little harshly. “If you’re going to mention the Disney thing again—I get it, you think I’m some—”

Toni smiles, she can’t help it.

“Wasn’t going to,” she says.

In all honesty, Toni doesn’t smoke that often either. It’s a habit she’s picked up from Regan, but she mostly only does it in moments like right now; when she’s just a bit more tipsy than she should be and needs a break.

The club’s been getting busier, and though it’s Canada, the amount of people starting to recognize them—any of them—had started to get on her nerves.

The fact that Shelby’s all of a sudden next to her, is not really helping.

“Where’s Dot and Fatin?” she says, just to say something.

“Convincing the DJ into going live with them on Fatin’s instagram, I think,” Shelby says, which, yeah, sounds like a thing that would be happening right now.

They’re both silent for a bit. Toni leans back against the wall, while Shelby is typing away on her phone.

She doesn’t know why she does it, but all of a sudden Toni hears herself say, “The other day, that thing with your dad, what was that about?”

Shelby looks up at her, alarmed. “Nothing,” she says, quick and sharp.

Toni rolls her eyes, already regretting asking it. “Fuck, never mind, then.”

She blows the last of the smoke out of her lungs and moves to go back inside, because no way she’s going to spend even another second out here with Shelby, if this is how it’s going to be. This was a waste of her time anyway.

“He didn’t know,” Shelby says.

Toni stops, turns back.

“I didn’t tell him I was doing this project,” Shelby clarifies. “I just left and didn’t tell anyone, and he’s not—well, he doesn’t really... approve of it yet. So I had to—I mean, we... talked.”

Toni studies her.

Shelby’s hair has come a bit undone over the course of the night, falling a little messily out of her clip. Despite the heat of the club, her make-up is still perfect, though, with the exception of her bottom lip, where her lipstick is just the slightest bit smudged, probably from the straws in her drinks.

It doesn’t look sloppy, though.

In fact, it looks—

It kind of makes Toni’s throat go dry. So she decides to focus on something else.

“Why doesn’t he approve?” she says.

There are probably other questions she could ask — _why didn’t you tell anyone? why do you need his approval, anyway? —_ but somehow this is the thing she settles on. Like keeping the focus on Shelby’s dad will allow her to maintain distance, even though Shelby is looking at her like this is personal, too.

“It’s not the kind of project I usually take on,” Shelby says, finally.

Something passes between them, a little sharper and more real than Toni was expecting, and she’s not sure if it’s the alcohol or not, but it feels like this is the first time there’s something between them that isn’t performance or discussion or challenge.

“So?” Toni says. “You’re not allowed to do something different?”

Shelby laughs, a cold and empty sound. “No,” she says. “I have to do what is expected.”

It’s the first time Toni wonders what Shelby’s had to drink tonight. Not because she seems unclear or drunk in any way, not more so than Toni, but because it’s almost a bit too honest.

“Why?”

Shelby looks at her. “Because that way, he can make sure I do it perfectly.”

Toni feels something clench in the center of her chest. Shelby’s eyes are filled with an emotion she can’t place immediately; it runs deeper than anything Toni’s seen from her before, and though she doesn’t want to look at it, she can’t help but be a little drawn in.

 _I’m not going to let anyone fuck it up,_ Shelby had said to her. _Not even you._

“No such thing as perfect,” Toni says. Her voice is a bit hoarse.

Something tenses in Shelby’s expression. She fumbles with her bracelet, opens her mouth like she wants to say something, then decides against it.

“What?”

“It’s just that—” Shelby hesitates again, before looking up. “You don’t know what it’s like.”

Toni exhales sharply, her temper lighting up like a match. “What? Because my mom’s in rehab and my dad’s in fucking jail?”

Shelby’s eyes widen. “Toni, I didn’t—”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know the shit they’re saying about me,” Toni snaps. She feels out of breath, already. Feels like she’s being pushed into a feeling that she doesn’t want to deal with.

Shelby is looking at her so intensely that it’s difficult to focus, but something inside of Toni has been torn now loose now.

“What, do you think anyone actually believes I belong here?” A choked-off, incredulous sound leaves her throat. “They all think it’s a fluke, Shelby. No matter what fake praising bullshit they write about me in their dumb articles, deep down they all think that someone like me won’t ever make it. They’re all waiting for me to fuck it up. To go back to Minnesota, get hooked on heroin and then end up in jail like the rest of my family.”

Shelby bites down on her bottom lip. “At least—”

“At least, what?” Toni bites out, not giving Shelby a chance to finish. “Everyone has fucking expectations to deal with, okay? Yours might be different from mine but it doesn’t mean I don’t know what it’s like. You’re not the only one who cares about doing this right.”

And here it is—

Right in the air between them, maybe more clearly than it’s been before; how it _does_ matter to both of them. How Toni needs this to work just as much as Shelby does, not to prove that she can do something different, but to prove that she can do anything at _all._ That she deserves a place in this cinematic universe, up there with the Gretchen Kleins and Shelby Goodkinds of the world. 

Shelby’s breathing is a little unsteady. They’ve moved closer to each other than Toni had realized and she feels a little hot with the realization. Her heart speeds up, her throat feels dry, and the fog of the alcohol finally seems to catch up with her, blurring the edges of their surroundings until all she can focus on is the green of Shelby’s eyes. The way Shelby’s gaze goes a little unfocused as her eyes drop to Toni’s mouth.

Toni pushes off the wall. “I’m going back inside.”

It’s the alcohol, she thinks.

It’s the alcohol that made her think that for a second—

Shelby doesn’t follow her and Toni’s never been more glad for it. 

:::

Their night is all over Fatin’s social media the next day, and the paparazzi pick it up, happily spreading rumors about why the three of them might be in Vancouver together, about what they could be working on, and—of course—discussing their outfits. 

There’s a surprising amount of interest in Dot, too, which Dot herself is fucking delighted about, having gained about ten thousand followers overnight, just from starring in Fatin’s instagram live.

“People are crazy,” she says, fixing Toni’s hair, and Toni wholeheartedly agrees.

She’s never been very interested in how media attention, but the speed with which this is blowing up is even getting to her a bit.

Gretchen doesn’t seem bothered about it in the slightest. If anything, she seems ecstatic.

“Engagement, remember?” she says, “We’re trying to make this into something people care about.”

And Toni doesn’t want to look at Shelby but their eyes meet anyway.

:::

After the second week, filming moves outdoors.

Shooting days get longer and more intense. More physically challenging, too—a lot of water scenes, snow scenes, dangerous descents down steep cliffs.

They’ve got stunt doubles for the most challenging parts, but they’re expected to take on the majority of work themselves.

As they are for everything, including the direction of the narrative. 

In terms of the gaps in the script, they’re slowly getting the hang of it. Fatin, especially, feels very comfortable just riffing off whatever baseline the script provides and seeing where they end up. Toni had been worried initially about not being skilled enough for it, but the more she drops into her character, the easier it gets. Especially whenever Nora encourages it.

She’s strange, Nora.

She’s quiet in a way that Toni is not used to. Very observant. Very analytical. She can pinpoint exactly where a scene is falling short without so much as looking at the playbacks.

She also seems to pick up on subtleties in their acting that Toni’s not even sure they’re showing on purpose; tension in Vita’s shoulders — “You’re trying to stay strong,” Nora says, “You don’t want them to see how scared you really are.” — and uncertainty in Mercy’s eyes — “It’s _your_ dad who’s responsible for this, how do you feel about that?”.

When it comes to Connor, surprisingly, Nora doesn’t give a lot of direction just yet.

“I don’t know,” she says, the one time that Toni asks her about reading a line a certain way over another. “You tell me.”

Sometimes, Nora’s quick to intervene. When she doesn’t think something is working, she’s not afraid to say it, even if they’ve only just started filming.

Other times, she lets everything spiral.

:::

“I said I’d do it,” Toni snaps. “I’m not a fucking pussy.”

Shelby exhales hard. “That’s so derogatory. You don’t have to—”

“For fuck’s sake.” Toni cuts her off. “If you could just stop being such a goodie-two-shoes for, like, two seconds, maybe we could actually get something done here.”

“You’re blaming me?” Shelby spits out. “That’s rich, Toni. Just real rich, after you’ve just wasted, I don’t know, like, seven takes for no reason at all.”

“Oh, _yes_.”

Both of them snap out of it, the moment Gretchen steps forward and claps in her hands.

Toni feels shaky with frustration and exhaustion and _cold_. They’re doing a night shoot on ice, just the two of them — Vita and Connor getting lost and ending up having to cross a frozen river, ending up fighting about the safest way to cross it — but there’s barely any script and it’s only getting later, and Shelby—

Shelby is so impossible to work with sometimes.

She’s glaring back at Toni like she’s thinking the exact same thing.

“This is it.” Gretchen’s face look slightly distorted in the night lamps, but even from here, Toni can see the excited glint in her eyes. “This is the energy we need. The bite. The desperation. You’re angry but you need each other to get to the other side.”

Shelby makes a frustrated sort of sound. “Gretchen, can’t we take five and—”

“ _Action_!”

:::

It’s not until the third week of filming that Toni realizes Shelby was right.

She hadn’t fully wanted to consider it before, but now she thinks about it for three days, watches the cues they get from the directors, reads the last scene over and over again—and realizes there is no way around it.

She pushes off talking about it until two days before the scene is planned, and then she knocks on the door of Shelby’s trailer.

“They’re going to make us kiss.”

Shelby nearly drops her glass of water. She’s dressed in sweats and a t-shirt, make-up washed off her face. It’s completely different from their night at the club, at yet, Toni is somehow staring all the same.

“W-what?”

Toni leans against the door, trying to play it off, trying to pretend like she hasn’t run over this conversation three times in her head before making her way over. “I think you were right. I think they want us to kiss in the last scene.” 

“I thought you said—” Shelby clears her throat. “On the phone, when we were talking about the script, I thought you said...”

Toni pushes her hands into the pockets of her jacket. “Yeah, I know. But, like, you’ve seen what they’re doing, right?”

Shelby looks too panicked to reply, so Toni pushes on.

“They keep pushing the tension,” she says. “Like, between our characters. I mean, they clearly don’t get along but there’s...” She hates to say it. “... clearly _something._ Like, that moment in the cave? The way Nora was talking about it yesterday?”

Shelby’s still not saying anything. She’s just looking at Toni in a way that makes her self-conscious enough to ramble on.

“The way that Vita is the only one who realizes just what it takes for Connor to talk about her family like that. And Connor, I think she’s—” Toni swallows thickly. “—like, maybe a little bit into Vita’s whole preppy, bossy attitude, even though she won’t admit it?”

It sounds more like a question than a statement.

Shelby’s breathing has sped up. The trailer is cramped enough for Toni to notice.

“Anyway, I thought I should give you a heads-up,” Toni finishes off. “That shit might get a little bit gay.”

Shelby’s mouth parts. She puts the glass she was holding onto the counter, then picks it up again, runs the tap, takes a sip. She puts it down. Picks it up again.

“Shelby...”

“It’s not a _gay_ story.”

Toni feels the word slam into her harder than Shelby probably meant. “What?”

“I’m just—” Shelby exhales hard. “It’s not, like, the main part of the story, right? Like, so what if they kiss, it doesn’t make it _gay_.”

Toni’s frowning now. 

“It just means they kiss. Once. Or maybe twice,” Shelby goes on, and Toni’s never seen her like this. This frantic, this on edge. “It doesn’t mean that it’s going to be a whole thing, right?”

Something defensive rises in Toni’s chest. This is not going the way she wanted. She figured they would just get on the same page about this, figured they would maybe talk about the scene. Instead, she can feel herself starting to get mad at Shelby’s reaction, though she’s not exactly sure why.

“I mean,” Toni goes on. “They didn’t make us do that chemistry read to see if we could be _buddies_.” She scoffs. “They were trying to figure out if we could fuck.”

The glass slips from Shelby’s hand, right into the sink, and Toni’s brain catches up only a second later.

“—on camera,” she adds, weakly.

“Jesus,” Shelby swears under her breath, and she looks so pale now, fingers shaking.

Like the thought of kissing Toni on camera is physically making her sick. 

And there’s the fury. “Look,” Toni bites out. “I know things are a little different in Texas, but if you’re going to be homophobic about this—”

“I think you should go,” Shelby says.

It’s so abrupt that Toni’s actually taken aback. Shelby’s not even looking at her. She’s just standing at the sink, kind of trembling, and rationally, Toni knows what the onset of a panic attack looks like. Rationally, she knows she shouldn’t leave Shelby alone right now, that she should try and help. She knows good people would do that, good people would stay. Martha would stay.

“Just leave me alone,” Shelby snaps.

And just like that, all Toni’s anger overrides her reason. 

“Whatever,” she snaps. “Fuck you, Shelby.”

She’s not Martha. She leaves.

:::

Toni’s right.

Gretchen takes them apart the next day, just the two of them, and it’s all _only if you’re on board with it_ and _only if you feel like the scene requires it,_ but they both know what she’s really asking. They both know it needs to happen.

Shelby nods along like this is business and doesn’t look at Toni once.

:::

They go through the scene with more preparation than they’ve done for anything else the past two days. They go through positioning, through angles, they go through the lines—the ones on paper, at least. They go through every element they can control, and it’s like Shelby’s not even there.

It’s like she’s put up a mask of quiet and calm, but underneath she’s completely unreachable.

Even Gretchen is thrown off by it.

“Shelby,” she says, “Are you sure you’re good? We can postpone the scene if you feel like the two of you should work through it a bit more?”

“I’m fine,” Shelby says.

Gretchen frowns. “We need the right energy for this. The tension should be palpable.”

They rehearse twice more.

Toni’s never felt this off in her entire life.

She didn’t realize how much she’s started to rely on working off of Shelby’s acting in the past month, but now that Shelby’s completely unreadable, she feels so off-balance that she almost says she’s not ready, almost requests another moment right before they start filming.

But she swallows it down, lets Gretchen say _action_ , and tries to focus on what Shelby’s saying, on what she should say back.

She’s standing close enough that Toni can see how dark her eyelashes are, that she can vaguely smell the hairspray that Dot uses for Shelby’s hair. She can feel Shelby’s breath on her lips, can already taste the hint of spearmint as Shelby closes the last bit of space between them, pulls on Toni’s — _Connor’s_ — jacket and—

:::

“You know what,” Gretchen says. “It’s been a long day. The light is not ideal either. Let’s reshoot this tomorrow.”

:::

It’s unfair, but Toni’s angrier than she thought she’d be.

“Ten years of being on the fucking Disney Channel,” she says, slamming the door of her trailer open, not even checking whether Shelby’s following her. “And that’s the best you could do? Didn’t any of your rich acting coaches work on this?”

Shelby is following her. The kiss has apparently shocked her back into herself. “I didn’t know she was going to reschedule it,” she says, and she finally sounds emotionally affected again. “I thought we’d have at least another take and I could do it right.”

“Should have gotten it right the first time,” Toni snaps, and really, it _isn’t_ fair; these things happen and it’s not like Shelby was responsible for the entire scene by herself, but Toni can still feel Shelby’s mouth pressed against hers, is still dizzy on the thought that it actually happened, and at the same time, Toni can’t help but think that—

“That’s not how I kiss,” Shelby says.

It knocks the breath from Toni’s lungs, just for a moment. “ _What_?”

“I know it was bad, but I don’t actually kiss like that,” Shelby says. “Like, in real life.”

_For fuck’s sake._

“That’s what you’re fucking worried about here?” Toni says, voice rising. “Not the fact that we just wasted a whole evening of everyone’s time? You’re worried about whether I think you’re a good kisser or not?”

Color rises on Shelby’s cheeks. “No, I just—”

“What even happened out there?” Toni bites out. “Why’d you freeze up like that?”

Shelby bites down on her bottom lip, lips that were just on Toni’s, soft and warm and—

She snaps herself out of it, fires the first thing she can think of at Shelby, just to distract herself from her running thoughts. “Is it because I’m a girl?”

“Yes,” Shelby says. “Fuck, I mean, _no._ I mean—”

“Are you really like this?” Toni bites out.

Something flashes in Shelby’s eyes. “I told you,” she says, “I don’t kiss like that.”

“Right.”

“No, you don’t understand.” She pushes forward, more into Toni’s space. “I don’t want to kiss you like that.”

There’s something in the words, a desperation for Toni to get this, to _listen._ But all Toni hears are the sharp edges, the way they cut right into her. “Fuck, okay.” She scoffs. “Message received. Jesus.”

“No, Toni—”

Shelby’s right in front of her, and Toni can’t fucking take it anymore. “God, I knew you had your issues,” she cuts out. “But I guess it’s good to know that kissing me is apparently so repulsive that you, that you can’t even—”

One moment, all Toni feels is the way the air shifts between them, and then she’s being yanked forward abruptly, Shelby’s hands sliding up her neck as she steps right up into Toni’s space and kisses her.

It’s—

It takes Toni a second to realize she’s being kissed, but then it catches up with her at once; the heat of Shelby’s mouth, the taste of her, the desperate way she seems to want to eliminate all space between them.

At the back of her mind, Toni has just enough composure to realize that Shelby’s right; that this is completely different from the way they just kissed in front of the cameras.

But then Shelby’s fingers slide up the nape of Toni’s neck and into her hair, and all rational thought gets wiped from Toni’s mind.

_Fuck._

Shelby’s tongue flicks against Toni’s bottom lip, making her stumble, accidentally pressing Shelby right back against the door of the trailer, and Shelby makes a gasped out sound, right into Toni’s mouth, and then they’re _kissing_ ; open-mouthed and needy and fast, and with a kind of reckless abandon that Toni didn’t realize she’d been chasing.

Her fingers tighten in the fabric of Shelby’s clothes, her body heating up with desire, and Shelby’s hand is getting tangled in Toni’s hair, and—

Shelby pushes Toni off, breaking the kiss almost as abruptly as she started it. Her eyes are wide and shocked, and Toni is too dazed to say anything, too startled to do anything but watch the way everything seems to hit Shelby at once.

Watch her spin around, yank the door open, and run.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N:
> 
> Whoops, they kissed. Let me know what you think in the comments! Any and all thoughts welcome :)


	4. IV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N:
> 
> Any cinematic souls out here, please forgive me. I’m taking so many liberties with film production here. I just can’t be bothered to research actual production timelines and fit them to the plot. So instead, the plot determines the film scheduling lol. I know it’s bad but the only thing I can think about is getting these two in the same places for necessary plot developments *cough* friends with benefits *cough*. Enjoy!

Toni dreams about it.

The trailer feels too small for what happened. Too small for the way Shelby had pressed herself against her, for the shocking sort of urgency in the kiss. Toni still can’t wrap her head around it, no matter how many times she runs it over in her mind.

She drifts in and out of a restless, shivering state of consciousness, thinking about it. It builds like a heady, delirious fusion of memory and fantasy; the heat of Shelby’s mouth, the faint taste of mint — lingering from the take, from the _screen kiss_ they’d shared just minutes before —mixed with something vaguely fruity from whatever chapstick Shelby uses.

How Shelby’s fingertips had pressed against the skin of her neck, the hungry way Toni had been pulled closer.

She dreams of Shelby sighing into her mouth. She dreams of Shelby breaking away from her like she’d been burned. She dreams of getting her hand on Shelby’s wrist right before she turns, of pulling her back, bracketing her against the door of the trailer; of nails in her back, the bare skin of Shelby’s hips—and it didn’t happen, none of that happened, but Toni dreams about it all the same.

She dreams of Shelby kissing her breathless, over and over, and when she wakes up, she still doesn’t understand a single thing about it.

::: 

“Ready?”

Shelby won’t meet her eyes.

Dot is busy with the final touches to their make-up, running a brush over Shelby’s temple and fixing the color on Toni’s lips one more time. The light technicians are all talking over each other, Gretchen is going through the script with Audrey, and Toni feels self-conscious in a way she hasn’t in a long time.

She plays a little with the sleeve of her jacket and clears her throat.

It’s like Shelby doesn’t even hear it. She gives Dot a sugary sort of smile and then looks directly over Toni’s shoulder, almost like they’re doing something completely separate here instead of getting ready to kiss on camera. _Again._

Shelby’s barely said more than two words to Toni since breakfast. Instead, she made some flimsy excuse about sorting through her scheduling and had spent the entire time asking a very grumpy Leah unnecessary questions. 

“Remember,” Gretchen is saying right now, though the sound seems to come from far away. “We have more than enough time for this scene. No need to rush any lines, just let the moment build naturally.”

Toni feels her heart race hard against her ribs. Shelby shifts a bit, steadying herself for a second with a hand on Toni’s hip, and it’s—

Her fingers feel hot and Toni jerks back just a bit. She’s so distracted by how fucking close they are, by the hint of Shelby’s perfume in the air between them, by the fact that she’s dreamed of Shelby _all night,_ and now they’re really going to do this, they’re going to kiss again.

“I want tension,” Gretchen says. “I need a bit of anger and a bit of desperation, but keep it soft for the moment when—”

Shelby steps forward, now fully into Toni’s space, and Toni can’t hear the rest of the directions anymore, the sound drowned out by Shelby’s sudden proximity.

There’s static in her ears and she can’t remember what lines she’s supposed to say, can’t really formulate any thought now that—

“Shelby...”

It’s barely a whisper, and Toni doesn’t fully realize she’s said Shelby’s name out loud until the fingers on her hip dig into her skin a lot harder than before and Shelby breathes out, so close that no one else hears it, “ _Don’t_.”

Everything inside of Toni’s chest tightens. The burning sting of her anger rises faster than she’s ready for; anger at the fact that she feels so unprepared suddenly, at the fact that Gretchen is just pushing through here, at the fact Shelby _still_ hasn’t fucking looked at her even though they’re nearly pressed together.

“Roll camera,” Gretchen says.

Everything quiets.

“Roll sound.”

And Toni is not ready. Her head is a mess of anger and confusion and _attraction_ , and this is not fair, this is not how it’s supposed to—

“Action.” 

Vita Jameson stares back at Toni, and the scene shifts into place.

:::

She feels dizzy on it, afterwards.

Feels dizzy and hot and goddamn _kissed_. 

They do six takes in total. Different angles for close-ups and wide frames. Gretchen is going on and on about how good it looks, how the power of the scene is already breaking through the screen, even like this.

“Do you two need anything?” Dot is saying. “A coat? Some gloves? It’s kinda cold out here.” 

Toni needs a fucking glass of water, that’s what she needs.

She waves Dot off.

She’s not cold at all; she can barely speak.

Shelby, on the other hand, seems present and revived in a way that would be concerning if it wasn’t for the fact that Gretchen seems completely overjoyed about how much it is making the scene work. She looks about ready to send the raw cut of the pilot episode to the goddamn Academy for consideration as a feature film.

“I think we got it,” she says. “I think we got it exactly right.”

Toni has never felt this unsteady in her entire life, and Shelby just smiles.

:::

After, there’s no chance to speak about it.

There are only got a couple of days left for filming and there’s still a lot of ground to cover, so they get caught up in normal proceedings quick enough. Fatin joins in and they spend all afternoon and evening working on a series of very technical, choreographed scenes on top of a cliff.

It’s enough to distract Toni for the duration of the day, but not enough to push whatever happened completely from her mind.

Which is why, sixteen hours later, will all her muscles sore and exhaustion weighing so heavily on her bones that all she wants to do is roll straight into bed, she catches Shelby’s arm just before they reach their trailers.

“Hey.”

Shelby turns.

It almost knocks Toni back a bit; how she’s been trying to get Shelby’s attention all day and suddenly here it is.

“Yes?” Shelby says, after a second that feels way too long.

Toni drops her hand. “Shouldn’t we talk?”

There is nothing in Shelby’s expression that gives anything away. “Talk?”

“Yes, Shelby.” Toni scoffs. She’s confused and _mad_ and completely unable to make sense of anything she’s feeling. “ _Talk._ It’s this thing people do when they work together.”

Something cools in Shelby’s eyes.

“I’m surprised you’d know,” she says.

And really, all Toni should say—should yell, should scream, maybe— is, _why the hell did you kiss me last night?_ But she somehow can’t seem to loosen the words from her throat. Can’t do anything but stare at Shelby, who looks very composed and collected, like nothing even fucking happened between them, except a professional scene.

“Just tell me,” Toni starts. “Last night—what—what _was_ that?”

Shelby sighs. She almost looks bored with the conversation, and it does nothing to soothe the fog of fury in Toni’s head.

“Do we have to do this now?” Shelby says. “I’d really just like to take a shower and get some sleep and—”

“You kissed me,” Toni cuts out.

And there it is.

Like a bullet slicing through the air.

Shelby swallows, the line of her throat moving ever so slightly. And then, she leans against the door of the trailer, and says, “You heard Gretchen, it was a perfect scene.”

Toni wants to scream at her.

She wants to say, _that’s not what I’m fucking talking about._ She wants to say, _I’m losing my goddamn mind over this._ She wants to say, _you kissed me and there was no one else to see it and it felt like you needed to prove something and I need to know what._

It’s too much.

She can’t bring herself to say any of it.

“Now if you’ll excuse me,” Shelby says. “I’m going to bed.”

:::

The moment Toni switches on her phone, she wishes she hadn’t. Regan’s name looks bold and flashy on her screen, more so than any of the other notifications, though technically they’re all the same. It’s a single message, picture attached, and when Toni opens it, she actually groans into her pillow.

_moving on fast I see._

It’s a screenshot of a picture from their night at the club, plucked right off of Fatin’s instagram.

It fucks with Toni’s head on several levels. First, to see Shelby back in all that black, as though Toni hasn’t actively been trying to wipe the memory of that look from her mind. Second, because Fatin’s draped her arm around Shelby’s neck in a way that’s very drunk-girls-at-the-club-close, which, for some reason makes Toni feel irrationally annoyed. And finally, because Shelby’s not looking at the camera, she’s looking at Toni, and Fatin has somehow decided to caption that _gal pals_ with a sparkling stars and a tongue emoji.

Toni resists the urge to text Regan, but then can’t resist.

_cmon don’t even start shit like this, u know it’s not like that._

She waits for the buzz of her phone, waits for Regan to text back, waits for her to say something that will be enough of an excuse for Toni to pick a fight. A way to get rid of all this tension in her body. A way to empty herself of the frustration, even if Regan has nothing to do with it. It’s what she does: directing the sharpness of any feeling outward so it’s tangible, so she doesn’t fucking have to deal with it alone.

But Regan can read her better than anyone, has been on the receiving end of this particular reaction one too many times, and Toni’s phone remains completely silent. It’s probably why she texted in the first place, draw Toni out and then leave her hanging.

She shoves her phone under her pillow a bit too aggressively, before sighing hard and picking it right up again.

It’s embarrassing; the fact that _shelby.goodkind_ is the top result as she navigates to her instagram search bar. It’s fucking embarrassing, and yet it does nothing to stop Toni from clicking on the name once again.

She’s so familiar with Shelby’s feed that some NSA agent somewhere must have flagged it by now.

The amount of times per day Toni gives into the desire to see whether Shelby has posted anything new, is shameful to say the least. This would be easier if she’d just follow the account, but she won’t. It’s a matter of principals.

Instead, she ends up scrolling slowly through the grid in quiet moments when she’s absolutely damn sure that no one will be able to notice, like when the only other people at breakfast are the technicians, or late at night, like now, in the privacy of her bed.

Instead, she watches Shelby’s stories through narrowed eyes, permanently half-annoyed and the performative shine of it all, wanting to call Shelby out on it, and simultaneously feverishly hoping her name will end up lost amongst all the pre-teens who are always leaving strings of heart emojis on Shelby’s posts.

Right now, the little circle around Shelby’s profile picture is bold, indicating unwatched stories.

Toni exhales hard, hates herself a bit, then clicks on it.

It’s a shot from set. Sunlight falling through the trees, pouring a golden glow on everything. Shelby’s hashtagged it _#blessed_ and it makes Toni want to punch her pillow, the fact that Shelby has avoided her all day, completely ignoring anything that happened between them, but is apparently not too busy to post this white girl nonsense on the internet. 

She flips onto her back, exhaling hard and pushing her forearm to her eyes, a pathetic attempt to block it all out.

In the dark of her trailer, she thinks about Minnesota. She thinks about Marty and summers at the lake. Nights out in the Blackburn’s backyard with the dogs. She thinks about senior year, about basketball games, and movies with Regan. The roof of the car, the fucking magic of it all. She thinks about the time before; before the scouts and before the auditions and before even realizing that this was something she could be doing, something she could _want_ to be doing.

Back when she had a hundred and twelve followers on instagram and a ruined basketball scholarship. Back when she worried about her mom and about tests and about losing her temper. Back when Shelby Goodkind was only Kelsi Summers; only a poster; only a stupid childhood crush.

Not a girl in a movie set trailer sixty feet away that Toni somehow can’t stop thinking about.

:::

They wrap and Toni calls home.

It’s a bit messy — it always is.

Her mom has been doing a lot better since _Hallucinogenic_ and both of them know exactly why that is, though they never speak about it. Money can buy you a long way towards recovery, even when it’s never guaranteed. It’s why their relationship is still volatile, why there’s plenty of strain to it, and why calls like this — where Toni talks about the sets and the names, and her mother says she’s proud with emphasis that’s uncomfortable — are never easy.

Still, it’s a world away from where they were when Toni was in school, and that’s something at least.

They wrap and there’s some sort of party, but Toni hangs with Fatin and Nora and manages to avoid Shelby for most of it.

Gretchen, of course, still attempts to force them together, going on and on about the beauty in what they’re bringing to the screen and all the exciting directions they can explore once the pilot gets picked up. It all ends up falling flat: Shelby is polite about it without any real conviction and Toni is just annoyed.

She’s trying to push everything to the back of her mind.

She’s trying to be professional, let the whole thing rest, and play whatever happened between them off as a fluke. For the most part, it seems to be working—until Vancouver International Airport ruins it all.

:::

“ _Shoot_.”

Toni glances up. “What?”

Shelby’s staring at the screen, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. “Looks like my flight’s cancelled.”

Toni’s already frowning, tracking her eyes over the list of departing flights, and it’s right there: the word _cancelled_ blinking after the YVR – LAX flight.

“Oh,” she says. “That’s—”

Shelby walks up to an information desk before Toni can think of an appropriate enough response, and it’s probably for the best because her first instinct is to be mad about inevitably being forced to spend more time with Shelby now. Fatin’s left yesterday and Toni’s own flight to JFK doesn’t leave for a couple of hours. 

She watches Shelby speak to an airline attendant, watches the light panic in her eyes, the sudden tension in her shoulders, and it makes her feel a bit guilty about her own reaction. If anything, Shelby probably isn’t dying to be stuck in an airport with Toni either. 

They’d booked evening flights on purpose, to avoid being too much in the public eye right after wrapping. Per Gretchen’s instructions, they’re supposed to keep a relative low profile until the pilot gets taken on because they want to preserve the _mystique_ of what they’re doing until the project is secured.

The good thing: not many people around to pay attention to them. The bad: seems like it’s going to be just the two of them for a good couple of hours. 

“No luck?” Toni says when Shelby makes her way back over, trying to keep her voice as even as possible.

Shelby shakes her head. “Gotta wait for the next one.”

“Right.”

The tension stretches between them, uncomfortable and thick. Toni tries to disappear into her sweatshirt.

Then, she sighs. “Okay, whatever, we can’t stay here.”

:::

They end up in a deserted Starbucks in some side wing of the airport. Shelby says she isn’t really hungry but then proceeds to take half of Toni’s grilled cheese, and Toni complains for three minutes that they should’ve gone somewhere else if Shelby was just going to steal her food, and it’s the first time Shelby’s smiled since the news of her cancelled flight.

It doesn’t completely diffuse the tension, but it’s something.

“What are you gonna do when you get back to New York?” Shelby says, after a moment of silence.

Toni shrugs. “I don’t know. See my friends. Go out. Wait for Gretchen to call and summon us back, I guess.”

Shelby nods, plays a little with a napkin and Toni wants to roll her eyes at the way Shelby won’t say anything until Toni explicitly asks. She’s got half the mind not to do it, just because, but then she gives in anyway.

“You?”

Something trembles at the corner of Shelby’s mouth. “My dad might make me come home for a bit.” Her eyes flick up to Toni’s. “Like, _home_. Back to Texas.”

Toni frowns. “So?”

Shelby gives her a look like she’s supposed to just get it, but Toni stays quiet.

They’ve been on the edge of this conversation before, when they were standing outside the club, that whole thing about perfection and expectations, and she is not an idiot. She knows there’s something under the surface of Shelby’s meticulously crafted image, but she’s not sure what it is, and she doesn’t really want to ask.

They’re not in that kind of place.

Certainly not after—

“Every time I’m there,” Shelby says slowly, like she’s pushing through some sort of invisible barrier to get the words out, “It feels like I’ll never get out.”

The air feels different, suddenly.

Toni swallows thickly, and she _hates_ that this happens; hates that she’s drawn in by the raw honesty in Shelby’s tone, hates that she can’t stop noticing the way Shelby’s fingers are fumbling nervously with the paper napkin, the way her eyelashes flutter like this a difficult thing to say.

She hates it because her heart speeds up at the feeling of sudden intimacy, of proximity. She hates it because she didn’t ask for it.

She hates it because Shelby’s so goddamn hot and cold with her all the time, constantly flicking back and forth between indifference and... _this_. It’s infuriating and unfair, and it’s making Toni feel like she’s always two steps behind, always not exactly grasping it, like Shelby’s simultaneously out of reach and right fucking here.

“Look,” she says then, and it comes out sharp and pushy, and she can’t help it. “You gotta stop letting other people run your life so much.”

Shelby’s expression hardens. “You think I don’t know that? It’s not that frickin’ easy, Toni.”

“No?” Toni fires right back. “Because from where I’m standing you’ve really got nothing to complain about.”

“My daddy,” Shelby goes on, like Toni hasn’t even spoken. “He’s going to ask me a million different questions. You think I can just live my own life but you don’t understand, he’s going to _force_ the answers out of me, and I don’t even know what he’s going to do once the episode actually airs and that kiss will be all over—”

Toni’s whole body tenses. “So, that’s what this is about?” She pushes off from the table. “Every single time. God, I can’t fucking believe this.” 

“ _Toni_.”

Shelby’s hand catches her wrist.

“You know,” Toni snaps, turning around, yanking her arm out of Shelby’s grip. “You gotta pick your fucking lane, Shelby. I’m not doing this all over again.”

“Do what again?” Shelby says, and there’s a hint of defiance to it, even though Toni is two seconds away from storming off.

It only fans the flames.

“You’ve got to make up your damn mind about kissing me,” she cuts out. “I’m not dealing with whatever homophobic panic you’ve got going on for an entire season! If you can’t handle it, I’m not going to—”

“I can handle it,” Shelby says, something flashing in her eyes. “You’ve seen I can handle it.”

“And yet the only thing you seem to care about is your _daddy_ and his questions and his—”

“You’re not getting it,” Shelby says. “You’re still not getting it.”

Toni feels a wave of frustration rolling through her chest.

“What am I not getting?” It sounds more desperate than she means. It sounds out of control and a little pleading and it makes Toni wild with fury at herself because she’s _not_ this person. She doesn’t care about Shelby and her fucking problems and she doesn’t even want to know what the hell is going on, certainly not in a random Starbucks at Vancouver International Airport, but somehow the words tumble from her lips anyway. “You’re the one who won’t fucking tell me anything, Shelby.”

Shelby bites down on her bottom lip. She looks so conflicted that it clenches tightly in Toni’s chest.

And then, Shelby whispers, “I just feel so trapped.”

The tightness explodes.

“ _Trapped_?” Toni scoffs. “Jesus, you really are the whitest girl I’ve ever met.” Shelby’s brows furrow together but Toni’s been holding back on this for too long. “You’re straight, you’re rich, you basically get everything handed to you on a silver platter.” 

Shelby stares at her, green eyes glinting in the low light, and then she says, “I’m not.”

“Rich?” Toni nearly chokes on the word. “Oh, sure, with your three hundred dollar haircut and your—”

“Straight.”

It slams all the air from Toni’s chest.

* * *

“W-what?”

Toni looks pale, and if Shelby wasn’t shaking with the weight of the confession she might have a little more mind for it, but as is, she can barely breathe through her own shock. Can barely feel anything beyond the way her heart is racing and her hands are trembling against the paper Starbucks coffee cup.

She doesn’t fully dare to meet Toni’s eyes.

“I told you,” she hears herself say, though it sounds distant, even to her own ears. “You think you know me but—”

Her voice cuts off with the effort to speak. It’s a miracle she’s even made it that far into a sentence.

At least she’s not crying.

With Thom, she’d—

At least she’s not fucking crying.

Not yet, anyway, because it’s not far off. She can’t stop the tremble in her muscles. She can’t stop feeling like she’s going to pass out. She can’t say anything else, because she didn’t expect this to happen. Didn’t think she was going to come out like this: in a deserted Starbucks in Vancouver International Airport at 10 pm to Toni Shalifoe.

Toni’s eyes are flooded with an emotion that Shelby can’t identify; something wild and shocked and... For a second, it almost looks like betrayal, and Shelby feels it slice through her, though it’s only there for a flash, before switching into something else entirely. Something way more dangerous: concern.

“ _Shelby_...”

“Can you not—” she tries. “Not say my name like that.”

Toni frowns, breathless. “Like what?”

 _Like you care,_ she wants to say. _Like this is important. Like it matters._

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she says, instead. 

The truth is that she _can’t_ talk about it, not really, and least of all with Toni. Every time she closes her eyes, she feels the memory of the kiss. The real one. The one against the door of the trailer; her hands searching so desperately for something to hold on to, her mouth so ready to prove herself.

Toni runs her hand through her hair, looks conflicted and overwhelmed. “So, are you saying you’re...”

Shelby feels her throat go dry.

“I’m... figuring things out,” she says. “I mean, I’ve known for a while, but—it’s not...” Her voice is shaky. “Like, I know you don’t believe me when I say it’s not easy, but it’s—”

Her breath catches in her throat as the panic rises, tears prickling in her eyes.

Toni just stares at her. For a moment, she’s motionless, just frozen in place, wrapped in her hoodie like she’s smaller than she is. Then, she walks away.

The shock of being left behind, just like that, is sharp and fast.

Shelby’s heart slams itself so hard against her ribcage that it hurts, but then she watches Toni walk up to the counter instead, which is all the way at the back of the café.

A minute later, a plastic bottle drops in front of her.

“Here,” Toni says. “Cooled. If you’re thirsty.”

It takes Shelby a moment to swallow past the feeling of relief.

:::

They don’t talk about it.

Either Toni seems to want to respect Shelby’s plea not to discuss it or she’s just stunned into silence from sheer shock, which is more likely.

Shelby still feels red hot with embarrassment.

After a few tentative sips of water, she excuses herself and runs her wrists under the taps in the bathroom for almost five minutes, and when she returns Toni is staring at her phone and mumbling something about departure times. Almost like Shelby never said anything in the first place. 

They move into a waiting area close to Toni’s gate and Shelby tries to clear her head. She scrolls through instagram, types out a generic response to Fatin’s latest selfie, considers texting Thom.

Every time she looks up and meets Toni’s eyes, Toni blushes.

It makes Shelby’s stomach flip uncomfortably.

They don’t speak about it, and the hours drag on slowly, and then finally, they’re calling Toni’s flight, and Toni leaves with her headphones on and a barely audible _see you later_ —and she doesn’t even touch Shelby in any way, but it still feels like her skin is on fire the entire time.

:::

The pilot episode gets picked up almost immediately.

Shelby’s barely been home for two weeks when she gets the news.

Because of the segmental nature of the show, it’s set to be officially released in two months’ time. By then, they’ll be back into production for the rest of the episodes, but Gretchen has taken it upon herself to organize a watch party at her own house for friends and family a month earlier, so they can all see the final product before they go back to film.

She calls to invite Shelby right after Saturday family breakfast, and the moment Shelby says _I’ll be there_ , her dad is on her case about coming too.

“Dave,” Shelby’s mother is saying, “Are you sure, honey? It’s Spencer’s birthday that weekend.”

“Tell you what,” her dad says. “We’ll all go. How about that, Shelb? We can all fly out, stay at the house and celebrate Spencer’s birthday there.” He puts a heavy hand on Spencer’s shoulder. “What do you say, son? Do you want to fly to L.A. and get a first look at your big sister’s new show?”

It takes every ounce of willpower to force a smile.

:::

Texas is hot.

So freakin’ hot.

Shelby spends most of the time by the pool, tanning, reading, hanging out with her brother and sister, and not thinking about Toni Shalifoe.

From what she can see on instagram, Toni’s glad enough to be back in New York. She posts the occasional instagram story; food pics, snapshots with Martha, cool bars and screenshots of whatever songs she’s listening to on Spotify.

Shelby knows she shouldn’t watch it, especially because her and Toni are still not following each other.

But Toni watches all of _her_ stories, and somehow she can’t resist to do the same.

Regan’s decidedly absent from Toni’s feed and Shelby’s not sure how to feel about it. She mostly tries not to think about it at all, because thinking about Regan makes her think about old pictures she’s seen of Toni and Regan kissing, and that makes her think of how Toni kisses, and that makes her think about the show and the storyline and the upcoming watch party and seeing Toni again and—

Anyway.

Fatin is better at keeping in touch than both of them combined. She forces a lot of messages into the group chat and sends them links to articles that are hyping up the show already, despite the fact that there’s barely any information available.

She also makes Shelby call her on FaceTime one afternoon.

“God, you look hot,” Fatin says, squinting at the camera. 

“It’s like 96 degrees here,” Shelby says. “Texas summer.”

“No, girl.” Fatin laughs. “You look _hot._ Like, that bikini is a thirst trap just waiting to happen. You should put that shit on insta.”

They go back and forth on it, Fatin somehow managing to get Shelby to strike a little pose, just for fun, to laugh out loud about it, to feel better than she has in days. In the end, after hanging up, she lets the sunlight catch on her skin, looks right in the camera in a way she’s learned to do during dozens of photoshoots, and takes the photo. 

She posts it on instagram without running it by Thom first.

It’s a little daring, certainly unexpected for her Disney Channel fans. It’s not exactly scandalous, but the pink of Shelby’s bikini is very visible and there’s a lot more skin on display than she’d usually be willing to show.

Somehow, it doesn’t make her as self-conscious as she thought it would. 

Maybe this, too, is part of what Thom’s been trying to tell her, what Fatin’s trying to tell her, what Gretchen, even—in a weird way—has been trying to tell her: to be more in charge of her own image, to decide what she wants to show off about herself. 

Maybe it doesn’t have to be shameful.

Maybe it can be kind of fun.

She posts the pic and then shoves her phone away under the lounge chair pillow, getting up to join Melody in the pool, not wanting to see any reactions happening in real time. She spends the majority of the next hours teasing her sister about school, talking about movies and life in Texas, and letting the mix of summer air and tanning lotion fill her senses.

When she finally opens her instagram page again, it’s to thousands and thousands of likes, comments just piling in, one on top of the other. 

Scrolling through the list, it makes Shelby burn with something hot; a little bit of embarrassment and a little bit of power—and then her breath catches in her throat at the sight of the notification.

_toni_shalifoe liked your photo._

She stares at it for a full minute, only snapping out of it once Mel calls her name, and even then she can’t shake it off for the rest of the day.

:::

She runs into Leah on her way to the bathroom.

Gretchen Klein’s watch party is in full swing. For the most part, Shelby’s been making small talk with industry representatives, talking sips of her red wine and ignoring the fact that she can feel her heart beat so heavily that it actually makes her a bit concerned.

Her dad’s fallen back into his old Hollywood persona with ease; the one that was most prevailing in Shelby’s early teens, when they were are living in L.A. as she was starting out her Disney Channel dream. Thom’s been introducing her family to the new team from _The Wilds_ and her dad’s been nothing but sunny Southern attitude.

(It’s jarring; how, for the first week she was home in Texas, her dad didn’t have a single good thing to say about Gretchen Klein or _these Hollywood progressives_ , and now he’s talking like this is the best project Shelby’s ever done. How two days ago, she nearly got a panic attack in an attempt to brief him on the plot of the first episode, and now he is laughing like he’s never been anything but supportive. His hand on Thom’s shoulder like they’re buddies, while Shelby knows that the moment he will see his baby girl kiss another girl on screen, the whole nice guy act is going to shatter into a million pieces.)

(And she knows, she _knows,_ he won’t hate her for it. It won’t be the end of the world. There’d been the thing with Becca and they’d managed to move past that in the end.)

(But still; her pulse feels weak in her wrists, and she has barely slept last night, and there are little red spots of stress under her foundation, because it still feels like her whole house is going to come crashing down in less than an hour). 

“Shelby?”

She blinks.

Leah’s blue eyes are watching her closely. “I asked if you were holding up okay.”

“What?” she says. “Oh, yeah, totally. I’m—it’s just—does it feel a bit hot to you?”

She fans her face and Leah just frowns.

Leah, who is dressed in a black jeans and a simple white button-up shirt — a stark contrast with Shelby’s glittery dress — like she couldn’t be bothered to adhere to any higher level of glamour. Leah, who always puts mind over anything else, who is looking at Shelby like she knows something is off.

“Have you seen Fatin?” Shelby says, because she needs Leah to stop that immediately.

Leah shrugs. “Think she’s outside, smoking with Toni.”

Shelby’s whole chest constricts. She hasn’t talked to Toni yet, hasn’t greeted her or even seen her enter the house. The thought of being in same space as Toni while her dad is going to see them kiss on screen is the most panic-inducing thing she can imagine.

“Whatever it is,” Leah says, then, stepping closer. “You should try to go easy on yourself.” 

Shelby bites down on her bottom lip. “I’m fine, I’m...”

Her voice thins out and Leah nods, like she gets it, like she knows it’s a lie but Shelby doesn’t have to say anything else about it if she doesn’t want to.

“It’s beautiful,” Leah says, then. “The episode. I’ve seen parts of it and it’s... it paid off, okay?” She says it almost factually, like it’s not about making Shelby feel better, but just the way things are. “It’s how Gretchen works. She’ll always make sure it pays off. Whatever the cost.”

Shelby nods, and then—

There’s a whistle from the end of the hallway, and someone says, “God bless Texas.”

Shelby turns, and the next thing she knows, Fatin’s arms wrap tightly around her neck, her voice right against Shelby’s ear as she says, “Excuse me, why are you depriving the general public of this look by hiding out here in the hallway?”

Shelby laughs, lets herself be hugged. “Good to see you, too.”

Fatin pulls back, looking every bit like a true Hollywood actress, with shiny hoops in her ears and the shortest blue dress on. One that, by the looks of it, is probably more expensive than anything in this whole house.

She smirks at Leah. “You clean up nicely, too.”

Leah rolls her eyes and says something back that Shelby can’t hear, because the next thing she knows, Toni’s right in front of her and it’s like all sound drowns out for a second.

“Hey.”

“Hi, there,” Shelby says, instinct taking over, and she hates how pronounced her accent is on just those two words.

But before she’s got a chance to overthink it, Toni’s stepping forward, giving Shelby the briefest of hugs. She smells faintly like cigarette smoke and some kind of subtle perfume that makes Shelby’s throat go dry. Her palm is warm on the open back of Shelby’s dress and Shelby is biting so hard on her bottom lip that she’s scared she’ll make it bleed, but then Toni pulls back and the moment is over.

Leah makes some excuse to check something with Gretchen, and all of a sudden it’s just the three of them out here.

“Almost showtime,” Fatin says.

Toni pushes her hands into the pockets of her gorgeous black blazer, and Shelby tries not to stare but her eyes keep meeting Toni’s accidentally.

“My family’s here,” Shelby breathes out.

Fatin’s brow furrows, before flashing Shelby a bright smile. “Right, I figured those two shiny white teenagers were your siblings. They look like they go bowling on the weekends and listen to God-approved country music.”

It makes Shelby chuckle, despite herself. “Don’t let Spence hear that. He’ll come for you.” She draws in a shaky breath and then, though she doesn’t really know why, she admits, “I don’t know about you, but I’m a little nervous.” 

Toni’s eyes narrow and Shelby can’t read the emotion in them. Fatin grabs Shelby’s hand, and—bless her—doesn’t comment on the way Shelby’s palm is slick with sweat.

“It’s all going to be fine,” she says, squeezing for emphasis. “All these Hollywood people are going to be tripping over themselves to talk to you afterwards about your killer performance.”

Toni doesn’t say anything but still nods, and the combination of it — Fatin’s words and Toni’s eyes — makes Shelby feel an unexpected, overwhelming rush of gratitude. To know she’s not alone out here. That, despite their differences, despite the fact that they are still getting to know each other, despite the fact that the pilot hasn’t even premièred yet, they’re already a collective, shaky as it may be. 

“Let me get you a stronger drink,” Fatin says, turning to the door. “And don’t even worry, I’m gonna be right by your side throughout the whole thing. We all know I need the mental support to witness just how bad my hair looks during that entire cliff sequence.”

Shelby feels a shaky smile pull at the corners of her mouth.

Just as she’s about to follow Fatin through the door, Toni catches her arm.

“Hey,” she says. “It’s going to matter, okay?”

Shelby’s throat feels dry. “What is?”

“Just that, um—” Toni glances down. “I just mean, there are people out there who... who care about seeing you like this. In roles like this. Like, roles that are, well, _you know._ ”

Their eyes lock and Shelby feels the heat of it rush through her whole body. “Toni...”

“It’s going to matter,” Toni says again, “And if your family doesn’t realize that, then...” She hesitates, then says it anyway. “Then, fuck ‘em.” 

Shelby inhales sharply.

It’s an echo of their conversation at the bar, about expectations. It’s an echo of even earlier, of the first night they met when they’d argued about representation.

“Thanks,” she says.

Toni nods, then walks into the room before Shelby can say anything else.

:::

The kiss is _beautiful._

Shelby feels hot watching it, feels herself drawn into the desperation of the moment, despite the fact that she knows all the beats, knows all the lines. For a moment, she’s not in a Hollywood mansion staring at herself on screen, but right back in the woods, with Toni’s mouth hot and wet and needy under hers. For a moment, the tension of the room disappears and her breath evens out, and everything feels right.

And then it all comes crashing down.

:::

On some level, she knows she partakes in the mechanics of the rest of the night.

She knows there is applause and there is champagne, she knows Gretchen gives a speech and Leah, for some reason, has tears in her eyes.

She watches Fatin wrap her arms around Toni, who looks a little uncomfortable at being the center of attention, but leans into in anyway, and then Fatin’s reaching out for Shelby’s hand, beckoning her to join the embrace, and after a moment she does, and it will be all over the internet tomorrow morning.

She gets pulled around, she gets praised, she gets photographed.

She registers, on some level, the looks on her family’s faces. How Mel’s beaming at her from the opposite side of the room, always easily excited. The mix of pride and confusion in Spencer’s eyes. Her mother’s expression; a little tight, a little concerned, but shiny with the affection that overrides everything else.

And—

:::

It’s bad.

It’s really bad.

:::

She feels like she’s not even in her body.

On some level, yes, she can hear herself respond, can hear herself explain, can hear herself make it through the _why didn’t you tell me, Shelbs_ , the _is this really what you want to be known for, baby?_ and the _I thought we were past this._

He doesn’t yell.

He doesn’t even explicitly mention the kiss.

He’s the epitome of a man who knows the world is changing and that this is Hollywood and that God does not to ugly.

A man who doesn’t mind whatever flags fly in this part of the country, but who can’t comprehend his daughter wanting to have anything to do with that, let alone, _having_ anything to do with it. 

He says, “What sort of message do you think this is sending to the kids out there that adore you?”

He says, “I’m just worried because I love you.”

He says, “And that other girl, is she—”

:::

She doesn’t realize she’s on the verge of a panic attack until the car drives away and she’s standing outside of Gretchen’s mansion watching her family disappear back to their house, and all of a sudden, her blood pressure drops like crazy and she can’t get any oxygen into her lungs, and it feels like her whole chest is being crushed and—

“ _Hey_.” Toni’s hand is on her shoulder. “Shelby.”

She can’t breathe—

She can’t breathe and her dad hates her and _she’s going to fucking hell for this—_

:::

“Where’s your place?”

Shelby closes her eyes. “Toni, no _._ I’m not—”

The Uber driver frowns, looking between the two of them like he’s not sure what to do with the situation. Then, his eyes widen, zoned in on Shelby. “Hey, weren’t you in that one Disney show? The one with all the singing kids who—” 

“Not fucking now,” Toni bites out at him. She turns to Shelby again. “C’mon. I’m not leaving you alone like this.”

“Seriously,” Shelby says, feeling faint. “I’m fine, it was just a moment of—”

“I don’t fucking care,” Toni says, interrupting her. “Tell him your address.”

And Shelby does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N:
> 
> How's everyone doing...? I can't wait to hear your thoughts on this one! Feel kinda nervous for some reason, so let me know what you liked/didn't like/anything that stood out/any incoherent keyboard smashes you want to share with me. 
> 
> I'm loving the support for this fic so much and your reaction to it truly makes my day!! I promise you I'm going to write the fuck out of this upcoming fwb arrangement lol.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N:
> 
> How was that? This chapter is just a set-up chapter. We'll dive into the good stuff soon! 
> 
> Fair warning that updates will be slow, but comments are always great motivation ;) let me know if you have any ideas about where you want this to go! You can also come chat to me on tumblr: e-lec-tric-in-di-go.


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